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WHAT’S MINE’S MINE 



Author of “ Donal Grant,” “Warlock o’ Glen warlock,” 
Weighed and Wanting,” Seaboard Parish,” 

Annals of a Quiet Neighbor- 
hood, etc. 


of C0/V6/5^v 

'^Qof washing}^ 


GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited 
New York : 9 Lafayette Place 
London, Glasgow and Manchester 

J. 

L> 


Copyright, 1886, 

BY 

D. Lothrop and Company. 


CONTENTS 


1. 

How come they there ? 







7 

2. 

A short Glance over the Shoulder 





17 

. 3. 

The Girls’ First Walk 







21 

4c 

The Shop in the Village 







31 

5. 

The Chief . 







38 

6. 

Work and Wage 







49 

7 .' 

Mother and Son 







62 

8. 

A Morning Call 







77 

9. 

Mr. Sercombe . 


• 





85 

10. 

The Plough-Bulls 


• 





92 

11. 

The Fir-Grove . 


• 





105 

12. 

Among the Hills 







115 

13. 

The Lake . 







126 

14. 

The Wolves 







137 

15. 

The Gulf that divided 







150 

16. 

The Clan Christmas . 







161 

17. 

Between Dancing and Supper 






174 

18. 

The Dog-Kennel 







182 

19. 

Rob of the Angels . 







192 

20. 

At the New House . 


• 





208 

21. 

The Brothers . 


• 





216 

22. 

The Princess . 


• 





227 

23. 

The two Pairs . 

• 

• 

• 


• 


240 

24. 

An Cabrach Mor 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 


249 

25. 

The Stag’s Head 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 


261 

26. 

Annie of the Shop . 

. 

. 

. 

. 

• 


275 


Y 


CONTENTS, 


vi 


27. 

The Encounter . 





. 281 

28. 

A Lesson .... 





. 288 

29. 

Nature .... 





. 292 

30. 

Granny Angry . 





. 307 

31. 

Change .... 





. 323 

32. 

Love Allodial . 





. 329 

33. 

Mercy calls on Granny 





. 342 

34. 

In the Tomb 





. 351 

35. 

At a High School 





. 360 

36. 

A Terrible Discovery 





. 368 

37. 

How Alister took it . 





. 374 

38. 

Love 





. 384 

39. 

Passion and Patience 





. 393 

40. 

Love Glooming 





. 404 

41. 

A Generous Dowry . 





. 415 

42. 

Mistress Conal . 





. 429 

43. 

Mr. Palmer still Relentless 





. 446 

44. 

Midnight .... 





. 4G3 

45. 

Something Strange . 





. 471 

4G. 

The Power of Darkness . 





. 475 

47. 

The New Stance 





. 483 

48. 

The Peat-Moss . . . 





. 489 

49. 

A Daring Visit . 





. 503 

50. 

The Flitting 





. 507 

51. 

The New Village 





. 510 

52. 

A Friendly Offer 





. 513 

53. 

Another Expulsion . 





. 517 

54. 

The Farewell . 





. 528 


WHAT'S MINE’S MINE. 


CHAPTER I. 


HOW COME THEY THERE? 


HE room was handsomely furnished, but such as 1 



J- would quarrel with none for calling common, for 
it certainly was uninteresting. Not a thing in it had 
to do with genuine individual choice, but merely with 
the fashion and custom of the class to which its occu- 
piers belonged. It was a dining-room, of good size, 
appointed with all the things a dining-room “ought” 
to have, mostly new, and entirely expensive — mirrored 
side-board in oak; heavy chairs, just the dozen, in 
fawn-colored morocco seats and backs — the dining- 
room, in short, of a London house, inhabited by rich 
middle-class people. A big fire blazed in the low 
round-backed grate, whose flashes were reflected in the 
steel fender and the ugly fire-irons that were never 
used. A snowy cloth of linen, finer than ordinary, for 
there was pride in the housekeeping, covered the large 
dining-table, and a company, evidently a family, were 
eating its breakfast. But how come these people 


there f 


For, supposing my reader one of the company, let 
him rise from the well-appointed table — its silver, 
bright as the complex motions of butler’s elbows can 
make it; its china, ornate though not elegant; its ham, 


7 


8 


what’s mine’s mine. 


huge, and neither too fat nor too lean ; its game pie, 
with nothing to be desired in composition or in flavor 
natural or artificial; — let him rise from these and go 
to the left of the two windows, for there are two oppo- 
site each other, the room having been enlarged by 
being built out : if he be such a one as I would have 
for a reader, might I choose — a reader whose heart, 
not merely his eye, mirrors what he sees — one who 
not merely beholds the outward show of things, but 
catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them, 
whose garment and revelation they are; — if he be 
such, I say, he will stand, for more than a moment, 
speechless with something akin to that which made the 
morning stars sing together. 

He finds himself gazing far over western seas, while 
yet the sun is in the east. They lie clear and cold, 
pale and cold, broken with islands scattering thinner 
to the horizon, which is jagged here and there with 
yet another. The ocean looks a wild, yet peaceful 
mingling of lake and land. Some of the islands are 
green from shore to shore, of low yet broken surface ; 
others are mere rocks, with a bold front to the sea, one 
or two of them strange both in form and character. 
Over the pale blue sea hangs the pale blue sky, flecked 
with a few cold white clouds that look as if they dis- 
owned the earth they had got so high — though none 
the less her children, and doomed to descend again to 
her bosom. A keen little wind is out, crisping the sur- 
face of the sea in patches — a pretty large crisping to 
be seen from that height, for the window looks over 
hill above hill to the sea. Life, quiet yet eager, is all 
about ; the solitude itself is alive, content to be a soli- 
tude because it is alive. Its life needs nothin or from 
beyond — is indejiendent even of the few sails of fish- 


HOW COME THEY THERE? 


9 


ing boats that here and there with their red brown 
break the blue of the water. 

If my reader, gently obedient to my thaumaturgy, 
will now turn and cross to the other window, let him 
as he does so beware of casting a glance on his right 
towards the place he has left at the table, for the room 
will now .look to him tenfold commonplace, so that he 
too will be inclined to ask, “ How come these and their 
belongings here — just here ?” — let him first look from 
the window. There he sees hills of heather rolling 
away eastward, at middle distance beginning to rise 
into mountains, and farther yet, on the horizon, show- 
ing snow on their crests — though that may disappear 
and return several times before settling down for the 
winter. It is a solemn and very still region — not a 
'pretty country at all, but great — beautiful with the 
beauties of color and variety of surface ; while, far in 
the distance, where the mountains and the clouds have 
business together, its aspect rises to grandeur. To his 
first glance probably not a tree will be discoverable; 
the second will fall upon a solitary clump of firs, like a 
mole on the cheek of one of the hills not far off, a hill 
steeper than most of them, and green to the top. 

Is my reader seized with that form of divine longing 
which wonders what lies over the nearest hill ? Does 
he fancy, ascending the other side to its crest, some 
sweet face of highland girl, singing songs of the old 
centuries while yet there was a people in these wastes? 
Why should he imagine in the presence of the actual? 
why dream when the eyes can see? He has but to 
return to the table to reseat himself by the side of one 
of the prettiest of girls ! 

She is fair, yet with a glowing tinge under her fair- 
ness which flames out only in her eyes, and seldom red- 


10 


what’s mine’s mine. 


dens her skin. She has brown hair with just a suspi- 
cion of red and no more, and a waviness that turns to 
curl at the ends. She has a good forehead, arched a 
little, not without a look of habitation, though whence 
that comes it might be hard to say. There are no 
great clouds on that sky of the face, but there is a soft 
dimness that might turn to rain. She has a straight 
nose, not too large for the imperfect yet decidedly 
Greek contour ; a doubtful, rather straight, thin-lipped 
mouth, which seems to dissolve into a bewitching smile, 
and reveals perfect teeth — and a good deal more to 
the eyes that can read it. When the mouth smiles, 
the eyes light up, which is a good sign. Their shape is 
long oval — and their color when unlighted, much that 
of an unpeeled. almond ; when she smiles, they grow red. 
She has an object in life which can hardly be called a 
mission. She is rather tall, and quite graceful, though 
not altogether natural in her movements. Her dress 
gives a feathery impression to one who rather receives 
than notes the look of ladies. She has a good hand — 
not the doll hand so much admired of those who can 
judge only of quantity and know nothing of quality, 
but a fine sensible hand, — the best thing about her: a 
hand may be too small just as well as too large. 

Poor mother earth ! What a load of disappointing 
women, made fit for fine things, and running all to self 
and show, she carries on her weary old back ! From all 
such, good Lord deliver us ! — except it be for our dis- 
cipline .or their awaking. 

Near her at the breakfast table sits one of aspect so 
different, that you could ill believe they belonged to 
the same family. She is younger and taller — tall in- 
deed, but not ungraceful, though by no means beautiful. 
She has all the features that belong to a face — among 


HOW COME THEY THERE? 


11 


them not a good one. Stay ! I am wrong : there were 
in truth, dominant over the rest, two good features — 
her two eyes, dark as eyes well could be without being 
all pupil, large, and rather long like her sister’s until she 
looked at you, and then they opened wide. They did not 
flash or glow, but were full of the light that tries to see 
— questioning eyes. They were simple eyes — I will 
not say without arridre pensee, for there was no end of 
thinking faculty, if not yet thought, behind them, — but 
honest eyes that looked at you from the root of eyes, 
with neither attack nor defence in them. If she was 
not so graceful as her sister, she was hardly more than 
a girl, and had a remnant of that curiously lovely min- 
gling of grace and clumsiness which we see in long-legged 
growing girls. I will give her the advantage of not 
being further described, except so far as this — that her 
hair was long and black, her complexion dark, with 
something of a freckly unevenness, and her hands larger 
and yet better than her sister’s. 

There is one truth about a plain face, that may not 
have occurred to many : its ugliness accompanies a con- 
dition of larger undevelopment, for all ugliness that is 
not evil, is undevelopment ; and so implies the larger 
material and possibility of development. The idea of 
no countenance is yet carried out, and this kind will 
take more developing for the completion of its idea, and 
may result in a greater beauty. I would therefore ad- 
vise any young man of aspiration in the matter of beauty, 
to choose a plain woman for wife — if through her 
plainness she is yet lovely in his eyes ; for the loveliness 
is herself victorious over the plainness, and her face, so 
far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in 
it room for completion on a grander scale than possibly 
most handsome faces. In a handsome face one sees the 


12 


what’s mine’s mine. 


lines of its coming perfection, and has a glimpse of what 
it must be when finished : few are prophets enough for 
a plain face. A keen surprise of beauty waits many a 
man if he be pure enough to come near the transfigura- 
tion of the homely face he loved. 

This plain face was a solemn one, and the solemnity 
suited the plainness. It was not specially expressive 
— did not look specially intelligent ; there was more of 
latent than operative power in it — while her sister’s 
had more expression than power. Both were lady-like ; 
whether they were ladies, my reader may determine. 
There are common ladies and there are rare ladies ; the 
former may be countesses ; the latter may be peasants. 

There were two younger girls at the table, of whom 
I will say nothing more than that one of them looked 
awkward, promised to be handsome, and was apparently 
a good soul ; the other was pretty, and looked pert. 

The family possessed two young men, but they were 
not here ; one was a partner in the business from which 
his father had practically retired ; the other was that 
day expected from Oxford. 

The mother, a woman with many autumnal remind- 
ers of spring about her, sat at the head of the table, 
and regarded her queendoin with a smile a little set, 
perhaps, but bright. She had the look of a woman on 
good terms with her motherhood, with society, with 
the universe — yet had scarce a shadow of assumption 
on her countenance. For if she felt as one who had a 
claim upon things to go pleasantly with her, had she 
not put in her claim, and had it acknowledged ? Her 
smile was a sweet white-toothed sinile, true if shallow, 
and a more than tolerably happy one — often irradiat- 
ing the Governor opposite — for so was the head styled 
by the whole family from mother to chit. 


IIOW COME THEY THERE? 


13 


He was the only one at the table on whose counte- 
nance a shadow — as of some end unattained — was 
visible. He had tried to get into parliament, and had 
not succeeded ; but I will not presume to say that was 
the source of the shadow. He did not look discon- 
tented, or even peevish; there was indeed a certain 
radiance of success about him — only above the cloudy 
horizon of his thick, dark eyebrows, seemed to hang a 
thundery atmosphere. His forehead was large, but his 
features rather small ; he had, however, grown a trifle 
fat, which tended to make up. In his youth he must 
have been very nice-looking, probably too pretty to be 
handsome. In good health and when things went well, 
as they had mostly done with him, he was sweet-tem- 
pered ; what he might be in other conditions was sel- 
dom conjectured. But was that a sleeping thunder- 
cloud, or only the shadow of his eyebrows ? 

He had a good opinion of himself — on what grounds 
all I do not know; but he was rich, and I know no 
better ground ; I doubt if there is any more certain 
soil for growing a good opinion of one’s self. Certainly, 
the more you try to rai§e one by doing what is right 
and worth doing, the less you succeed. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer had finished his breakfast, and 
sat for a while looking at nothing in particular, plunged 
in deep thought about nothing at all, while the girls 
went on with theirs. He was a little above the middle 
height, and looked not much older than his wife ; his 
black hair had but begun to be touched with silver ; he 
seemed a man without an atom of care more than hu- 
manity counts reasonable; his speech was not unlike 
that of an Englishman, for, although born in Glasgow, 
he had been to Oxford. He spoke respectfully to his 
wife, and with a pleasant playfulness to his daughters ; 


14 


what’s mine’s mine. 


his manner was nowise made to order, but natural 
enough ; his grammar was as good as conversation re- 
quires ; everything was respectable about him — and 
yet — he was one remove at least from a gentleman. 
Something hard to define was lacking to that idea of 
perfection. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer’s grandfather had begun to 
make the family fortune by developing a little secret 
still in a remote highland glen, which had acquired a 
reputation for its whiskey, into a great superterrene 
distillery. Both he and his son made money by it, and 
it had “ done well” for Mr. Peregrine also. With all 
three of them the making of money was the great call- 
ing of life. They were diligent in business, fervent in 
spirit, serving Mammon, and founding claim to consid- 
eration on the fact. Neither Jacob nor John Palmer’s 
worst enemy had ever called him a hypocrite : neither 
had been suspected of thinking to serve Mammon and 
God. Both had gone regularly to church, but neither 
had taught in a Sunday school, or once gone to a week- 
day sermon. Peregrine had built a church and a 
school. He did not now take any active part in the 
distillery, but employed money variously — in making 
more money, for he had a genuine turn for business. 

Jacob, the son of a ship-chandler at Greenock, had 
never thought about gentleman or no gentleman ; but 
his son John had entertained the difference, and done 
his best to make a gentleman of Peregrine ; and neither 
Peregrine nor any of his family ever doubted his father’s 
success. He had not quite succeeded. I would have 
the blame laid on Peregrine and not on either father 
or grandfather. For a man to grow a gentleman, it is 
of great consequence that his grandfather should have 
been an honest man ; but if a man be a gentleman, it 


HOW COME THEY THERE ? 


15 


matters little what his grandfather or grandmother 
either was. Nay — if a man be a gentleman, it is of 
the smallest consequence, except for his own sake, 
whether the world counts him one or not. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer rose from the table with a 
merry remark on the prolongation of the meal by his 
girls, and went towards the door. 

“ Are you going to shoot ? ” asked his wife. 

“ Not to-day. But I am going to look after my guns. 
I daresay they’ve got them all right, but there’s nothing 
like seeing to a thing yourself.” 

Mr. Palmer had this virtue, and this very gentleman- 
like way — that he always gave his wife as direct an 
answer as he would another lady. He was not given 
to marital brevity. 

He was there for the grouse-shooting — not exactly, 
only “ as it were.” He did not care very much about 
the sport, and had he cared nothing, would have been 
there all the same. Other people, in what he counted 
his social position, shot grouse, and he liked to do what 
other people did, for then he felt all right : if ever he 
tried the gate of heaven, it would be because other peo- 
ple did. But the primary cause of his being so far in 
the north was the simple fact that he had had the 
chance of buying a property very cheap — a fine prop- 
erty of mist and cloud, heather and rock, mountain and 
moor, and with no such reputation for grouse as to en- 
hance its price. “ My estate,” sounded well, and after 
a time of good preserving he would be able to let it well, 
he trusted. No sooner was it bought than his wife and 
daughters were eager to visit it ; and the man of business, 
perceiving that it would cost him much less if they 
passed their summers there instead of on the continent, 
proceeded at once to enlarge the house and make it 


16 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


comfortable. If they should never go a second time, it 
would, with its perfect appointments, make the place 
unusually attractive ! 

They had arrived the day before. The journey had 
been fatiguing, for a great part of it was by road ; but 
they were all in splendid health, and not too tired to 
get up in reasonable time the next day. 


CHAPTER II. 


A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER. 


R. PEREGRINE was the first of the Palmer 



family to learn that there was a Palmer coat of 
arms. He learned it at college, and on this wise. 

One day a fellow-student, who pleased himself with 
what he called philology, remarked that his father must 
have been a bit of a humorist to name him Peregrine : — - 
“ except indeed it be a family name ! ” he added. 

“ I never thought about it,” said Peregrine. “ I don’t 
quite know what you mean.” 

The fact was he had no glimmering idea of what he 
meant. 

“Nothing profound,” returned the other. “Only 
don’t you see Peregrine means pilgrim? It is the 
same as the Italian pellegrino , from the Latin, pere- 
grinus , which means one that goes about the fields, — 
what in Scotland you call a landlouper .” 

“Well, but,” returned Peregrine, hesitatingly, “I 
don’t find myself much wiser. Peregrine means a pil- 
grim, you say, but what of that ? All names mean 
something, I suppose ! It don’t matter much.” 

“ What is your coat of arms?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Why did your father call you Peregrine ? ” 

“ I don’t know that either. I suppose because he 
liked the name.” 


17 


18 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


“ Why should he have liked it?” continued the other, 
who was given to the Socratic method. 

“ I know no more than the man in the moon.” 

“ What does your surname mean ? ” 

“ Something to do with palms, I suppose.” 

“ Doubtless.” 

“ You see I don’t go in for that kind of thing, like 
you!” 

“ Any man who cares about the cut of his coat, might 
have a little curiosity about the cut of his name : it sits 
to him a good deal closer ! ” 

“ That is true — so close that you can’t do anything 
with it. You can’t pull it off however you criticise it ! ” 

“You can change it any day. Would you like to 
change it ? ” 

“ No, thank you, Mr. Stokes ! ” said Peregrine dryly. 

“ I didn’t mean with mine,” growled the other. “ My 
name is an historical one too — but that is not in ques- 
tion. Do you know your crest ought to be a hairy 
worm ? ” 

« Why?” 

“Don’t you know the palmer-worm? It got its 
name where you got yours ! ” 

“ Well, we all come from Adam.” 

“ What ! worms and all ? ” 

“ Surely. We’re all worms, the parson says. Come, 
put me through ; it’s time for lunch. Or, if you prefer, 
let me burst in ignorance. I don’t mind.” 

“Well, then, I will explain. The palmer was a pil- 
grim : when he came home, he carried a palm-branch 
to show he had been to the holy land.” 

“ Did the hairy worm go to the holy land too ? ” 

“ He is called a palmer- worm because he has feet 
enough to go any number of pilgrimages. But you are 


A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER. 


19 


such a landlouper, you ought to blazon two hairy 
worms saltier-wise.” 

“ I don’t understand.” 

“ Why, your name, interpreted to half an ear, is just 
Pilgrim Pilgrim ! ” 

“ I wonder if my father meant it ! ” 

“ That I cannot even guess at, not having the pleas- 
ure of knowing your father. But it does look like a 
paternal joke ! ” 

His friend sought out for him the coat and crest of 
the Palmers ; but for the latter, strongly recommended 
a departure: the fresh family-branch would suit the 
worm so well! — his crest ought to be two worms 
crossed, tufted, the tufts ouched in gold. It was not 
heraldic lauguage, but with Peregrine passed well 
enough. Still he did not take to the worms, but con- 
tented himself with the ordinary crest. He was hence- 
forth, however, better pleased with his name, for he 
fancied in it something of the dignity of a double 
surname. 

His first glance at his wife was because she crossed 
the field of his vision ; his second glance was because 
of her beauty; his third because her name was Shelley. 
It is marvellous how whimsically sentimental common- 
place people can be where their own interesting per- 
sonality is concerned : her name he instantly associated 
with scallop-shell , and began to make inquiry about her. 
Learning that her other name was Miriam, one also of 
the holy land — 

“ A most remarkable coincidence ! — a mere coinci- 
dence of course ! ” he said to himself. “ Evidently 
that is the woman destined to be the companion of my 
pilgrimage ! ” 

When their first child was born, the father was 


20 


what’s mine’s mine. 


greatly exercised as to a fitting name for him. He 
turned up an old botany book, and sought out the 
scientific names of different palms. Chamaerops would 
not do, for it was a dwarf -palm; Borassus might do, 
seeing it was a boy — only it stood for a fan-palm; 
Corypha would not be bad for a girl, only it was the 
name of a heathen goddess, and would not go well with 
the idea of a holy palmer. Cocoa , Phoenix , and Areca , 
one after the other, went in at his eyes and through 
his head ; none of them pleased him. His wife, how- 
ever, who in her smiling way had fallen in with his 
whim, helped him out of his difficulty. She was the 
daughter of nonconformist parents in Lancashire, and 
had been encouraged when a child to read a certain 
old-fashioned book called “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” 
which her husband had never seen. He did not read 
it now, but accepted her suggestion, named the boy 
Christian. When a daughter came, he would have 
had her Christiana, but his wife persuaded him to be 
content with Christina. They named their second son 
Valentine, after Mr. Valiant-for-truth. Their second 
daughter was Mercy ; and for the third and fourth, 
Hope and Grace seemed near enough. So the family 
had a cool glow of puritanism about it, while nothing 
was farther from the thoughts of any of them than 
what their names signified. All, except the mother, 
associated them with the crusades for the rescue of the 
sepulchre of the Lord from the pagans ; not a thought 
did one of them spend on the rescue of a live soul from 
the sepulchre of low desires, mean thoughts, and crawl- 
ing selfishness. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE GIRLS FIRST WALK, 


HE Governor , Peregrine and Palmer as he was, 



-L did not care about walking at any time, not even 
when he liad to do it because other people did ; the 
mother, of whom there would have been little left had 
the sweetness in her moral, and the house-keeping in 
her practical nature, been subtracted, had things to see 
to within doors ; the young people must go out by 
themselves ! They put on their hats, and issued. 

The temperature was keen, though it was now nearly 
the middle of August, by which time in those northern 
regions the earth had begun to get a little warm : the 
house stood high, and the atmosphere was thin. There 
was a certain sense of sadness in the pale sky and its 
cold brightness ; but these young people felt no cold, 
and perceived no sadness. The air was exhilarating, 
and they breathed deep breaths of a pleasure more akin 
to the spiritual than they were capable of knowing. 
For as they gazed around them, they thought, like 
Hamlet’s mother in the presence of her invisible hus- 
band, that they saw all there was to be seen. They did 
not know nature : in the school to which they had gone 
they patronized instead of revering her. She wrought 
upon them nevertheless after her own fashion with her 
children, unheedful whether they knew what she was 
about or not. The mere space, the mere height from 


21 


22 


what’s mine’s mine. 


which they looked, the rarity of the air, the soft aspir- 
ation of earth towards heaven, made them all more of 
children. 

But not one of them being capable of enjoying any- 
thing by herself, together they were unable to enjoy 
much ; and, like the miser who, when he cannot much 
enjoy his money, desires more, began to desire more 
company to share in the already withering satisfaction 
of their new possession — to help them, that is, to get 
pleasure out of it, as out of a new dress. It is a good 
thing to desire to share a good thing, but it is not well 
to be unable alone to enjoy a good thing. It is our 
enjoyment that should make us desirous to share. 
What is there to share if the thing be of no value in 
itself? To enjoy alone is to be able to share. No par- 
ticipation can make that of value which in itself is of 
none. It is not love alone but pride also, and often 
only pride, that leads to the desire for another to be 
present with us in possession. 

Th e-girls grew weary of the show around them because 
it was so quiet, so regardless of their presence, so move- 
less, so monotonous. Endless change was going on, but 
it was too slow for them to see ; had it been rapid, its 
motions were not of a kind to interest them. Ere half- 
an-hour they had begun to think with regret of Picca- 
dilly and Regent street — for they had passed the season 
in London. There is a good deal counted social which 
is merely gregarious. Doubtless humanity is better 
company than a bare hill-side ; but not a little depends 
on how near we come to the humanity, and how near 
we come to the hill. I doubt if one who could not en- 
joy a bare hill-side alone, would enjoy the hill-side in 
any company; if he thought he did, I suspect it would 
be that the company enabled him, not to forget himself 


THE GIRLS’ FIRST WALK. 


23 


in what he saw, but to be more pleasantly aware of 
himself than the lone hill would permit him to be : — 
for the mere hill has its relation to that true self which 
the common self is so anxious to avoid and forget. The 
girls, however, went on and on, led mainly by the ani- 
mal delight of motion, the two younger making many 
a diversion up the hill on the one side, and down the 
hill on the other, shrieking aloud at everything fresh 
that pleased them. 

The house they had just left stood on the projecting 
shoulder of a hill, here and there planted with firs. Of 
the hardy trees there was a thicket at the back of the 
house, while towards the south, less hardy ones grew 
in the shrubbery, though they would never, because of 
the sea-breezes, come to any height. The carriage- 
drive to the house joined two not very distant points 
on the same road, and there was no lodge at either 
gate. It was a rough, country road, a good deal rutted, 
and seldom repaired. Opposite the gates, rose the 
steep slope of a heathery hill, along the flank of which 
the girls were now walking. On their right lay a piece 
of rough moorland, covered with heather, patches of 
bracken, and coarse grass. A few yards to the right, it 
sank in a steep descent. Such was the disposition of 
the ground for some distance along the road — on one 
side the hill, on the other a narrow level, and abrupt 
descent, gradually descending towards a valley. 

As they advanced they caught sight of a ruin rising 
above the brow of the descent : the two younger darted 
across the heather towards it ; the two elder continued 
their walk along the road. 

“ I wonder what we shall see round the corner 
there ! ” said Mercy, the younger of the two. 

“ The same over again, I suppose ! ” answered Chris- 


24 


what’s mine’s mine. 


tina. “ What a rough road it is ! I’ve twice nearly 
sprained my ankle ! ” 

“I was thinking of what I saw the other day in 
somebody’s travels — about his interest in every turn of 
the road, always looking for what w as to come next.” 

“ Time enough when it comes, in my opinion ! ” re- 
joined Christina. 

For she was like any other mirror — quite ready to 
receive what was thrown upon her, but incapable of 
originating anything, almost incapable of using any- 
thing. 

As they descended, and the liill-side, here covered 
with bracken and bowlders, grew higher and higher 
above them, the valley, in front and on the right, grad- 
ually opened, here and there showing a glimpse of a 
small stream that cantered steadily towards the sea, now 
tumbling over a rock, now sullen in a brown pool. 
Arriving at length at a shoulder of the hill round which 
the road turned, a whole mile of the brook lay before 
them. It came down a narrow valley, with scraps of 
meadow in the bottom ; but immediately below them 
the valley was of some width, and was good land from 
side to side, where green oats waved their feathery 
grace, and the yellow barley was nearly ready for the 
sickle. No more than the barren hill, however, had the 
fertile valley anything for them. Their talk was of the 
last ball they were at. 

The sisters were about as good friends as such neg- 
ative creatures could be ; and they would be such 
friends all their lives, if on the one hand neither of 
them grew to anything better, and on the other no 
jealousy, or marked difference of social position through 
marriage, intervened. They loved each other, if not 
tenderly, yet with the genuineness of healthy family* 


THE GIRLS’ FIRST WALK. 


25 


habit — a thing not to be despised, for it keeps the door 
open for something better. In itself it is not at all to 
be reckoned upon, for habit is but the merest shadow of 
reality. Still it is not a small thing, as families go, if 
sisters and brothers do not dislike each other. 

They were criticizing certain of the young men they 
had met at the said ball. Being, in their development, if 
not in their nature, commonplace, what should they 
talk about but dress or young men? And why, al- 
though an excellent type of its kind, should I take the 
trouble to record their conversation? To read, it 
might have amused me — or even interested, as may a 
carrot painted by a Dutchman ; but were I painter, I 
should be sorry to paint carrots, and the girls’ talk is 
not for my pen. At the same time I confess myself in- 
capable of doing it justice. When one is annoyed at 
the sight of things meant to be and not beautiful, there 
is danger of not giving them even the poor fair-play 
they stand in so much the more need of that it can do 
so little for them. 

But now they changed the subject of their talk. 
They had come to a point of the road not far from the 
ruin to which the children had run across the heather. 

“ Look, Chrissy ! It is an old castle ! ” said Mercy. 
“ I wonder whether it is on our land ! ” 

“ Not much to be proud of ! ” replied the other. “ It 
is nothing but the walls of a square house ! ” 

“Not just a common square house! Look at that 
pepper-pot on one of the corners ! — I wonder how it 
is all the old castles get deserted ! ” 

“ Because they are old. It’s well to desert them be- 
fore they tumble down.” 

“But they wouldn’t tumble down if they weren’t 
neglected. Think of Warwick castle ! Stone doesn’t 


26 


what’s mine’s mine. 


rot like wood ! Just see the thickness of those walls! ” 
“Yes, they are thick! But stone too has its way of 
rotting. Westminster palace is wearing through flake 
by flake. The weather will be at the lords before 
long.” 

“That’s what Valentine would call a sign of the 
times. I say, what a radical he is, Chrissy ! — look ! 
the old place is just like an empty eggshell ! I know, 
if it had been mine, I wouldn’t have let it come to 
that!” 

“ Y ou say that because it never was yours : if it had 
been, you would know how uncomfortable it was ! ” 

“ I should like to know,” said Mercy, after a little 
pause, during which they stood looking at the ruin, 
“whether the owners leave such places because they 
get fastidious and want better, or because they are too 
poor to keep them up ! At all events a man must be 
poor to sell the house that belonged to his ancestors ! 
— It must be miserable to grow poor after being used 
to plenty ! — I wonder whose is the old place ! ” 

“O, the governor’s, I suppose! He has all here- 
about for miles.” 

“ I hope it is ours ! I should like t6 build it up again ! 
I would live in it myself ! ” 

“ I’m afraid the governor won’t advance your share 
for that purpose, Mercy ! ” 

“ I love old things ! ” said Mercy. 

“ I believe you take your old doll to bed with you 
still ! ” rejoined Christina. “ I am different to you ! ” 
she continued, with Frenchified grammar. “ I like 
things as new as ever I can have them.” 

“ I like new things well enough, Chrissy — you know 
I clo ! It is natural. The earth herself has new clothes 
once a year. It is but once a year, I grant ! ” 


THE GIRLS’ FIRST WALK. 


27 


“ Often enough for an old granny like her ! ” 

“Look what a pretty cottage! — down there, half- 
way to the burn ! It’s like an English cottage ! Those 
we saw as we came along were either like a piece of 
the earth, or so white as to look ghastly ! This one looks 
neat and comfortable, and has trees about it ! ” 

The ruin, once a fortified house and called a castle, 
stood on a sloping root or spur that ran from the hill 
down to the bank of the stream, where it stopped 
abruptly with a steep scaur, at whose foot lay a dark 
pool. On the same spur, half-way to the burn, stood a 
low, stone-built, thatched cottage, with a little grove 
about it, mostly of the hardy, contented, musical fir — 
a tree that would seem to have less regard to earthly 
prosperity than most and looks like a pilgrim and a 
stranger : not caring much, it thrives where other trees 
cannot. There might have been a hundred of them, 
mingled, in strangest contrast, with a few delicate silver 
birches, about the cottage. It stood towards the east 
side of the sinking ridge, which had a steep descent, 
both east and west, to the fields below. The slopes 
were green with sweet grass, and apparently smooth as 
a lawn. Not far from where the cottage seemed to 
rest rather than rise or stand, the burn rushed right 
against the side of the spur, as if to go straight through 
it, but turned abruptly, and flowed along the side to 
the end of it, where its way to the sea was open. On 
the poin t of the ridge were a few more firs : except 
these, those about the cottage, the mole on the hill- 
cheek, and the plantation about the New House, up or 
down was not a tree to be seen. The girls stood for a 
inoment looking. 

“ It’s really quite pretty ! ” said Christina with con- 
descension. “It has actually something of what one 


28 


what’s mine’s mine. 


misses here so much — a certain cosy look ! Tidy it is 
too ! As you say, Mercy, it might be in England — 
only for the poverty of its trees. — And oh those 
wretched bare hills ! ” she added, as she turned away 
and moved on. 

“Wait till the heather is quite out : then you will 
have color to make up for the bareness.” 

“ Tell true now, Mercy : that you are Scotch need 
not keep you from speaking the truth : — don’t you 
think heather just — well — just a leetle magentaish? 
— not a color to be altogether admired? — just a little 
vulgar, don’t you know ? The fashion has changed so 
much within the last few years ! ” 

“No, I don’t think so; and if I did I should be 
ashamed of it. I suppose poor old mother Earth ought 
to go to the pre-Raphaelites to be taught how to dress 
herself!” 

Mercy spoke with some warmth, but Christina was 
not sufficiently interested to be cross — though she 
made no answer. 

They were now at the part of the road which crossed 
the descending spur as it left the hill-side. Here they 
stopped again, and looked down the rocky slope. There 
was hardly anything green betwixt them and the old 
ruin — little but stones on a mass of rock ; but imme- 
diately beyond the ruin the green began : there it 
seemed as if a wave of the meadow had risen and over- 
flowed the spur, leaving its turf behind it. Catching 
sight of Hope and Grace as they ran about the ruin, 
they went to join them, the one drawn by a vague in- 
terest in the exuma of vanished life, the other by mere 
curiosity to see insitle the care-worn, protesting walls. 
Through a gap that might once have been a door, they 
entered the heart of the sad unhoping thing dropt by 


THE GIRLS’ FIRST WALK. 


29 


the Past on its way to oblivion : nothing looks so unlike 
life as a dead body, nothing so unfit for human dwell- 
ing as a long-forsaken house. 

Finding In one corner a broken stair, they clambered 
up to a gap in the east wall ; and as they reached it, 
heard the sound of a horse’s feet. Looking down the 
road, they saw a gig approaching with two men. It 
had reached a part not so steep, and was coming at a 
trot. 

“Why!” exclaimed Christina, “there’s Yal! — and 
some one with him ! ” 

“ I heard the governor say to mamma,” returned 
Mercy, “that Yal was going to bring a college friend 
with him ‘ — for a pop at the grouse,’ he said. I wonder 
what he will be like ! ” 

“ He’s a good-big-looking fellow,” said Christina. 

They drew nearer. 

“ You might have said a big good-looking fellow ! ’’ 
rejoined Mercy. 

“ He really is handsome ! — ISTow mind, Mercy, I was 
the first to discover it ! ” said Christina. 

“ Indeed you were not ! — I was the first to say it, 
anyhow ! ” returned Mercy. “ But I don’t mean to like 
him, so you can have him.” 

It was vulgar — and yet the girls were not vulgar — 
they were only common. They did and said vulgar 
things because they had no sensitive vitality to make 
them shrink from them. They had not been well 
taught — that is roused to live : in the family was not 
a breath of aspiration. There was plenty of ambition, 
that is, aspiration turned hell-wards. They thought 
themselves as far from vulgar as any lady in any land, 
being vulgar essentially in this — that they despised 
the people they called vulgar, and thought much of 


30 


what’s mine’s mine. 


themselves for not being vulgar. There was little in 
them the world would call vulgar ; but the world and 
its ways are vulgar ; its breeding will not pass with the 
ushers of the high countries. It was mcfre a fast, dis- 
agreeable way of talking than anything worse : they 
owed it to a certain governess they had had for a while. 

They hastened to the road. The gig came up. Val- 
entine threw the reins to his companion, jumped out, 
embraced his sisters, and seemed glad to see them. 
Had he met them after a like interval at home, he 
would have given them a cooler greeting ; but he had 
travelled so many miles that they seemed not to have 
met for quite a long time. 

“My friend, Mr. Sercombe,” he said, jerking his 
head towards the gig. 

Mr. Sercombe raised his pot-lid — the last fashion, 
in headgear — and acquaintance was made. 

“We’ll drive on, Sercombe,” said Valentine, jump- 
ing up. “You see, Chris, we’re half dead with hun- 
ger ! Do you think we shall find anything to eat ? ” 

“Judging by what we left at breakfast,” replied 
Christina, “I should say there would be enough for — 
one of you ; but you had better go and see.” 


! 



CHAPTER IV. 


THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE. 

T W O or three days have passed. The sun has been 
set for an hour, and the night is already rather 
dark notwithstanding the long twilight of these northern 
regions, for a blanket of vapor has gathered over the 
heaven, and a few stray drops have begun to fall from 
it. A thin wind now and then wakes, and gives a 
feeble puff, but seems immediately to change its mind 
and resolve not to blow, but let the rain come down. 
A drearier-looking spot for human abode it would be 
difficult to imagine, except it were as much of the 
sandy Sahara, or of the ashy, sage-covered waste of 
Western America. A muddy road wound through huts 
of turf — among them one or two of clay, and one or 
two of stone, which were more like cottages. Hardly 
one had a window two feet square, and many of their 
windows had no glass. In almost all of them the only 
chimney was little more than a hole in the middle of 
the thatch. This rendered the absence of glass in 
the windows not so objectionable; for, left without 
ordered path to its outlet, the smoke preferred a cir- 
cuitous route, and lingered by the way, filling the air. 
Peat smoke, however, is both wholesome and pleasant, 
nor was there mingled with it any disagreeable smell 
of cooking. Outside were no lamps; the road was 
unlighted save by the few rays that here and there 
crept from a window, casting a doubtful glimmer on 
the mire. 


31 


32 


what’s mine’s mine. 


One of the better cottages sent out a little better 
light, though only from a tallow candle, through the 
open upper half of a door divided in two horizontally. 
Except by that same lialf-door, indeed, little light could 
enter the place, for its one window was filled with all 
sorts of little things for sale. Small and inconvenient 
for the humblest commerce, this was not merely the 
best, it was the only shop in the hamlet. 

There were two persons in it, one before and one be- 
hind the counter. The latter was a young woman, 
the former a man. 

He was leaning over the counter — whether from 
weariness, listlcssness, or interest in his talk with the 
girl behind, it would not have been easy, in the dim 
*' light and deep shadow, to say. He seemed quite at 
home, yet the young woman treated him with a marked, 
though unembarrassed respect. The candle stood to 
one side of them upon the counter, making a ghastly 
halo in the damp air ; and in the light puff that occa- 
sionally came in at the door, casting the shadow of one 
of a pair of scales, now on this now on that of the 
two faces. The young woman was tall and dark, with 
a large forehead: — so much could be seen; but the 
sweetness of her mouth, the blueness of her eyes, the 
extreme darkness of her hair, were not to be distin- 
guished. The man was also dark. His coat was of 
some rough brown material, probably dyed and woven 
in the village, and his kilt of tartan. They were more 
than well worn — looking even in that poor light a 
little shabby. On his head was the highland bonnet 
called a glengarry. His profile was remarkable — 
hardly less than grand, with a certain aquiline expres- 
sion, although the nose was not roman. His eyes 
appeared very dark, but in the daylight were greenish 


THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE. 


38 


hazel. Usually he talked with the girl in Gaelic, but 
was now speaking English, a far purer English than 
that of most English people, though with something 
of the character of book-English as distinguished from 
conversation-English, and a very perceptible accent. 

“ And when was it you heard from Lachlan, Annie ? ” 
he asked. 

After a moment’s pause, during which she had been 
putting away things in a drawer of the counter — not 
so big as many a kitchen dresser — 

“Last Thursday it was, sir,” the girl answered. 
“You know we hear every month, sometimes oftener.” 

“Yes; I know that. — I hope the dear fellow is 
well?” 

“ He is quite well and of good hope. He says he 
will soon come and see us now.” 

“ And take you away, Annie ? ” 

“ Well, sir,” returned Annie, after a moment’s hesi- 
tation, “ he does not say so.” 

“ If he did not mean it, he would be a rascal, and I 
should have to kill him. But my life on Lachlan’s 
honesty ! ” 

“ Thank you, sir. He would lay down his for you.” 

“Hot if you said to him, Don’t! — eh, Annie?” 

“But he would, Macruadh ! ” returned the young 
woman, almost angrily. “ Are not you his chief ? ” 

“ Ah, that is all over now, my girl ! There are no 
chiefs, and no clans any more ! The chiefs that need 
not, yet sell their land like Esau for a mess of pottage 
— and their brothers with it ! And the Sasunnach who 
buys it, claims rights over them that never grew on the 
land or were hid in its caves ! Thank God, the poor 
man is not their slave, but he is the worse off, for they 
will not let him eat, and he has nowhere to go. My 


34 


what’s mine’s mine. 


heart is like to break for my peojde. Sometimes I feel 
as if I would gladly die.” 

“ Oh, sir ! don’t say that ! ” expostulated the young 
woman, and her voice trembled. “ Every heart in 
Glenruadh is glad when it goes well with the Macruadh.” 

“Yes, yes; I know you all love my father’s son and 
my uncle’s nephew ; but how can it go well with the 
Macruadh when it goes ill with his clan ? There is no 
way now for a chief to be father of his family ; we are 
all poor together ! My uncle — God rest his soul ! — 
they managed it so, I suppose, as to persuade him there 
was no help for it! Well, a man must be an honest 
man, even if there be no way but ruin ! God knows, 
as we’ve all heard my father say a hundred times from 
the pulpit, there’s no ruin but dishonesty! For poverty 
and hard work, he’s a poor creature would crouch for 
those ! ” 

“ He who well goes down hill, holds his head up ! ” 
said Annie, and a pause followed. 

“There are strangers at the New House, we hear!” 
she said. 

“ From a distance I saw some young ladies, and one 
or two men. I don’t desire to see more of them. God 
forbid I should wish them any manner of harm ! but 
— I hardly understand myself — I don’t like to see 
them there. I am afraid it is pride. They are rich, I 
hear, so we shall not be troubled with attention from 
them ; they will look down upon us — ” 

“ Look down on the Macruadh ! ” exclaimed Annie, 
as if she could not believe her ears. 

“ — not that I should heed that ! ” he went on. “ A 
cock on the bam-ridge looks down on you, and you 
don’t feel offended ! What I do dread is looking down 
on them. There is something in me that can hate, 


THE SHOP IN T1IE VILLAGE. 


35 


Annie, and I fear it. There’s something about the 
land — I don’t care about money, but I feel like a miser 
about the land ! — I don’t mean any land ; I shouldn’t 
care to buy land unless it had once been ours ; but 
what came down to me from my own people — with 
my own people upon it — I would rather turn the 
spigot of the molten gold and let it run down the 
abyss, than let a rood of that slip from me ! I feel it a 
disgrace to have lost it, though I never had it ! ” 

“ Indeed, Macruadh,” said Annie, “ it’s a hard time ! 
There is no money in the country ! And fast the peo- 
ple are going after Lachlan ! ” 

“ I shall miss you, Annie ! ” 

“You are very kind to us all, sir.” 

“ Are you not all my own ? And you I have to take 
care of for Lachlan’s sake besides. lie left you sol- 
emnly to my charge — as if that had been necessary, the 
foolish fellow, when we are foster-brothers ! ” 

Again came a pause. 

“Not a gentleman-farmer left from one end of the 
strath to the other ! ” said the chief at length. “ When 
Ian is at home, we feel just like two old turkey-cocks 
left alone in the yard ! ” 

“Say two golden eagles, sir, on the cliff of the 
rock.” 

“ Don’t compare us to the eagle, Annie. I do not 
love the bird. He is very proud and greedy and cruel, 
and never will know the hand that tames him. He is 
the bird of the monarch or the earl, not the bird of the 
father of his people. But he is beautiful, and I do not 
kill him.” 

“ They shot another, the female bird, last week ! All 
the birds are going ! Soon there will be nothing but 
the great sheep and the little grouse. The capercail- 


36 


what’s mine's mine. 


zie’s gone, and the ptarmigan’s gone! — Well, there’s 
a world beyond ! ” 

“Where the birds go, Annie? — Well, it maybe’ 
But the ptarmigan’s not gone yet, though there are not 
many; and for the capercailzie — only who that loves 
them will be here to see! — But do you really think 
there is a heaven for all God’s creatures, Annie ? Ian 
does.” 

“ I don’t know what I said to make you think so, sir ! 
When the heart aches the tongue mistakes. But how 
is my lady, your mother ? ” 

“ Pretty well, thank you — wonderfully cheerful. It 
is time I went home to her. Lachlan would think I 
was playing him false, and making love to you on my 
own account ! ” 

“No fear! He would know better than that! He 
would know too, if she w'as not belonging to Lachlan, 
her father’s daughter would not let her chief humble 
himself.” 

“You’re one of the old sort, Annie! Good-night! 
Mind you tell Lachlan I never miss a chance of look- 
ing in to see how you are getting on.” 

“ I will. Good-night, Macruadh.” 

They shook hands over the counter, and the young 
chief took his departure. 

As he stood up, he showed a fine-made, powerful 
frame, over six feet in height, and perfectly poised. 
With a great easy stride he swept silently out of the 
shop; nor from gait any more than look would one 
have thought he had been all day at work on the rem- 
nant of property he could call his own. 

To a cit it would have seemed strange that one 
sprung from innumerable patriarchal ancestors holding 
the land of the country, should talk so familiarly with 


THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE. 


37 


a girl in a miserable little shop in a most miserable 
hamlet ; it would have seemed stranger yet that such 
a one should toil at the labor the soul of a cit despises ; 
but stranger than both it would seem to him, if he saw 
how such a man is tempted to look down upon him. 
Less cleverness is required for country affairs, and so 
they leave more room for thinking. There are great and 
small in every class — here and there a ploughman that 
understands Burns, and here and there a large-minded 
shopkeeper, here and there perhaps an unselfish duke. 
Doubtless the youth’s ancestors, almost all, would like- 
wise have held such labor unworthy of a gentleman, 
and preferred driving to their hills a herd of lowland 
cattle ; but this, the last Macruadh, had now and then 
a peep into the kingdom of heaven. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE CHIEF. 


HE Macruadh strode into the dark, and down the 



-L village, wasting no time in picking his way — 
thence into the yet deeper dark of the moorland hills. 
The rain was beginning to come down in earnest, but 
he did not heed it ; he was thorougli-bred, and feared 
no element. An umbrella was to him a ludicrous 
thing : how could a little rain — as he would have called 
it had it come down in torrents — hurt any one ! 

The Macruadh, as the few who yet held by the sore- 
frayed, fast-vanishing skirt of clanship, called him, 
was the son of the last minister of the parish — a godly 
man, who lived that which he could ill explain, and 
was immeasurably better than those parts of his creed 
which, from a sense of duty, he pushed to the front. 
For he held devoutly the root of which he spoke 
too little, and it supplied much sap to his life and 
teaching out of the pulpit. He was a genial, friendly, 
and by nature even merry man, always ready to share 
what he had, and making no show of having what he 
had not, either in wisdom, knowledge or earthly 
goods. His father and brother had been owmers of 
the property and chiefs of the clan, much beloved by 
the poor of it, and not a little misunderstood by most 
of the more flourishing. For a great hunger after larger 
means, the ambition of the mammon-ruled world, had 
arisen in the land, and with it a rage for emigration. 


THE CHIEF. 


39 


The uncle of the present Macruadh did all he could to 
keep his people at home, lived on a couple of hundreds 
a year himself, and let many of his farms to his gentle- 
men-tacksmen, as they were called, at lower rents ; but 
it was unavailing; one after another departed, until 
his land lay in a measure waste, and grew very poor, 
mourning far more over his clan and his country than 
his poverty. In more prosperous times he had scraped 
together a little money, meaning it, if he could but 
avoid spending it in his old age, for his brother, who 
must soon succeed him ; for he was himself a bachelor 
— the result of a romantic attachment and sorrow in 
his youth. But he had placed it in a bank the mana- 
gers of which became dishonest, and so he lost it. At 
length he believed himself compelled, for the good of 
his people, to part with all but a mere remnant of the 
property. From the man to whom he sold it, Mr. 
Peregrine Palmer bought it for twice the money, and 
had still a good bargain. But the hopes of the laird 
were disappointed. In the sheep it fed, and the grouse 
it might be brought to breed, lay all its value in the 
market, and more and more of the peasantry emigrated, 
or were driven to other parts of the country. But such 
ownership of land as causes human life to ebb from it 
works directly counter to the creative God, and when 
the stone falls upon them, it will grind them to powder. 

The laird retired to the humble cottage of his brother 
the pastor, just married rather late in life — where 
every comfort love could give waited for him ; but the 
thought that he could have done better for his people 
by retaining the land soon wore him out ; and having 
made a certain disposition of the purchase-money, he 
died. 

What remained of the property came to the minister. 


40 


what’s mine’s mine. 


As for the chieftainship, that had almost died before 
the chief ; but, reviving by union with the reverence 
felt for the minister, it took thereafter a higher form. 
When the minister died, the idea of it transmitted to 
his son was of a peculiarly sacred character ; while in 
the eyes of the people, the authority of the chief and 
the influence of the minister seemed to meet reborn in 
Alister notwithstanding his youth. In himself he was 
much beloved, and in love the blessed rule, blessed 
where understood, holds, that to him that hath shall be 
given, he only who has being fit to receive. The love 
the people bore to his father, both pastoi* and chief, 
crowned head and heart of Alister. Scarce man or 
woman of the poor remnant of the clan did not love 
young Macruadh. 

On his side was true response. With a renewed 
and renovating conscience, and a vivid sense that all 
things had to be made new, he possessed an old strong 
heart, clinging first to his father and mother, and then 
to the shadow even of any good thing that had come 
floating down the ages. Call it a dream, a wild ideal, 
a foolish fancy — call it what you please, he was filled 
with the notion of doing something in his own person 
and family, with the remnant of the clan for a nucleus 
of endeavor, to restore to a vital reality, let it be of 
smallest extent, the most ancient of governments, that 
of the patriarch, which all around had rotted into the 
feudal, in its turn rapidly disintegrating into the mere 
dust and ashes of the kingdom of the dead, over which 
mammon reigns supreme. There may have been 
youthful presumption and some folly in the notion, but 
it sprang neither from presumption nor folly, but from 
simple humanity, and his sense of the responsibility he 
was bound to undertake as the person upon whom had 


THE CHIEF. 


41 


devolved the hardship, however shadowy, of a house, 
ruinous indeed, but not yet razed. 

The ruin on the ridge stood the symbol of the family 
condition. It had, however, been a ruin much longer 
than any one alive could remember. Alister’s uncle 
had lived in a house on the spot where Mr. Peregrine 
Palmer’s now stood ; the man who bought it had pulled 
it down to build that which Mr. Palmer had since 
enlarged. It was but a humble affair — a great cot' 
tage in stone, much in the style of that in which the 
young chief now lived — only six times the size, with 
the one feature indispensable to the notion of a chief’s 
residence, a large hall. Some would say it was but a 
huge kitchen ; but it was the sacred place of the house, 
in which served the angel of hospitality. There was 
always plenty to eat and drink for any domer, whether 
he had “ claim ” or not : the question of claim where 
was need, was not thought of. When the old house 
had to make room for the new, the staves of the last 
of its half-pipes of claret, one of which used always to 
stand on tap amidst the peat-smoke, yielded its final 
ministration to humanity by serving to cook a few 
meals for mason and carpenter. 

The property of Clanruadh, for it was regarded as 
clan-property because belonging to the chief, stretched 
in old time away out of sight in all directions — no- 
body, in several, could tell exactly how far, for the 
undrawn boundary lines lay in regions of mist and 
cloud, in regions stony, rocky, desert, to which a red 
deer, not to say a stray sheep, rarely ascended. At one 
time it took in a portion at least of every hill to be 
seen from the spot where stood the ruin. The chief 
had now but a small farm, consisting of some fair soil 
on the slope of a hill ; some very good in the valley on 


42 


what’s mine’s mine. 


both sides of the burn ; and a hill-pasture that was not 
worth measuring in acres, for it abounded in rocks, and 
was prolific in heather and ling, with patches of coarse 
grass here and there, and some extent of good high- 
valley grass for the small black cattle and black-faced 
sheep in summer. Beyond periodical burnings of the 
heather, this uplifted portion received no attention save 
from the mist, the snow, the rain, the sun, and the 
sweet air. A few grouse and black game bred on it, 
and many mountain-hares, with martens, wild cats, and 
other vermin. But so tender of life was the Macruadh 
that, though he did not spare these last, he did not like 
killing even a fox or a hooded crow, and never shot a 
bird, for sport, or would let another shoot one, though 
the poorest would now and then beg a bird or two from 
him, sure of having their request. It seemed to him as 
if the creatures were almost a part of his clan, and 
that he had to take care of them too from a greedy 
world. But as the deer and the birds ranged where 
they would, it was not much he could do for them — as 
little almost as for those that had gone over the sea, 
and were lost to their country in Canada. 

Regret, and not any murmur, stirred the mind of 
Alister Macruadh when he thought of the change that 
had passed on all things around him. He had been too 
well taught for grumbling — least of all at what was 
plainly the will of the Supreme — inasmuch as, how- 
ever man might be to blame, the thing was there. 

Personal regrets he had none beyond those of family 
feeling and transmitted sentiment. He was able to 
understand something of the signs of the times, and 
saw that nothing could bring back the old way — saw 
that nothing comes back — at least in the same form ; 
saw that there had been much that ought not to come 


THE CHIEF. 


43 


back, and that, if patriarchal ways were ever to return, 
they must rise out of, and be administered upon loftier 
principles — must begin afresh, and be wrought out 
afresh from the bosom of a new Abraham, capable of 
so bringing up his children that a new development of 
the one natural system of government should be possi- 
ble with them. Perhaps even now, in the new country 
to which so many of his people were gone, some 
shadowy reappearance of the old fashion might have 
begun to take shape on a higher level, with loftier aims, 
and in circumstances holding fewer temptations to the 
evils of the past! 

Alister could not, at his years, have generated such 
thoughts but for the wisdom that had gone before him 
— first the large-minded speculation of his father, who 
was capable even of discarding his prejudices where 
he saw they might mislead him ; and next, the response 
of his mother to the same : she was the only one who 
entirely understood her husband. Isobel Macruadh 
was a woman of real thinking-power. Her sons being 
but boys when their father died, she at once took the 
part of mediator between the mind of the father and 
that of his sons ; besides guiding them on the same 
principles, she often told them things their father had 
said, and talked with them of things he used to say. 
They had not many books, and no new ones were for a 
long time accessible to them. 

One of the chief lessons he had left them wrought 
well for the casting out of all with which the feudal 
system had debased the patriarchal ; and the poverty 
shared with the clan had powerfully helped: it was 
spoken against the growing talionic regard of human 
relations — that the conditions of a bargain fulfilled on 
both sides, all is fulfilled between the bargaining parties. 


44 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“In the possibility of any bargain,” he had said, 
“ are involved eternal conditions : there is relationship 
— there is brotherhood. Even to give with a denial of 
claim, to be kind under protest, is an injury, is charity 
without the love, is salt without the saltness. If we 
spent our lives in charity we should never overtake 
neglected claims — claims neglected from the very be- 
ginning of the relations of men. If a man say, ‘ I have 
not been unjust; I owed the man nothing;’ he sides 
with Death — says with the typical murderer, ‘ Am I 
my brother’s keeper?’ builds the tombs of those his 
father slew.” 

In the bosom of young Alister Macruadh, the 
fatherly relation of the strong to the weak survived 
the disappearance of most of the outward signs of 
clan-kindred : the chieftainship was sublimed in him. 
The more the body of outer fact died, the stronger 
grew in him the spirit of the relation. As some savage 
element of the race will reappear in an individual of it 
after ages of civilization, so may old ways of thinking 
and feeling, modes long gone out of fashion and prac- 
tice, survive and revive modified by circumstance, in an 
individual of a new age. Such a one will see the cus- 
toms of his ancestors glorified in the mists of the past ; 
what is noble in them will appeal to all that is best in 
his nature, spurring the most generous of his impulses, 
and stirring up the conscience that would be void of 
offence. When the operative force of such regards 
has been fostered by the teaching of a revered parent ; 
when the influences he has left behind are nourished 
and tended, with thorough belief and devoted care, by 
her who shared his authority in life, and now bears 
alone the family sceptre, there can be no bound set to 
their possible potency in a mind of high spiritual order. 


THE CHIEF. 


45 


The primary impulse became with Alister a large por- 
tion of his religion : he was the shepherd of the much 
ravaged and dwindled Macruadh-fold ; it was his church, 
in which the love of the neighbor was intensified in 
the love of the relation and dependent. To aid and 
guard these his flock, was Alister’s divine service. It 
was associated with a great dislike of dogma, origina- 
ting in the recoil of the truth within him from much 
that was commonly held and taught for true. 

Call the thing enthusiasm or what you will, so you 
believe it there, and genuine. 

It was only towards the poor of a decayed clan he 
had opportunity of exercising the cherished relation ; 
almost all who were not poor had emigrated before the 
lands were sold ; and indeed it was only the poor who 
set store by their unity with the old head. Not a few 
of the clan, removed elsewhere, would have smiled 
degenerate, and not without scorn in their amusement, 
at the idea of Alister’s clinging to any supposed reality 
in the position he could claim. Among such neverthe- 
less were several who, having made money by trade, 
would each have been glad enough to keep up old 
traditions, and ready even to revive older, had the 
headship fallen to him. But in the hands of a man 
whom, from the top of their wealth, they regarded as 
but a poor farmer, they forgot all about it — along with 
a few other more important and older-world matters ; 
for where Mammon gets in his foot, he will soon be 
lord of the house, and turn not merely Rank, his rival 
demon, out of doors, but God himself. Alister indeed 
lived in a dream ; he did not know how far the sea of 
hearts had ebbed, leaving him alone on the mount of 
his vision ; but he dreamed a dream that was worth 


46 


what’s mine’s mine. 


dreaming; comfort and help flowed from it to those 
about him, nor did his own soul fail to drink refresh- 
ment also. All dreams are not false ; some dreams are 
truer than the plainest facts. Fact at best is but a 
garment of truth, which has ten thousand changes of 
raiment woven in the same loom. Let the dreamer 
only do the truth of his dream, and one day he will 
realize all that was worth realizing in it — and a great 
deal more and better than it contained. Alister had 
no far-reaching visions of anything to come out of his ; 
he had, like the true man he was, only the desire to 
live up to his idea of what the people looked up to in 
him. The one thing that troubled him was, that his 
uncle, whom he loved so dearly, should have sold the 
land. 

Doubtless there was pride mingled with his devotion, 
and pride is an evil thing. Still it was a human and 
not a devilish pride. I would not be misunderstood as 
defending pride, or even excusing it in any shape ; it is 
a thing that must be got rid of at all costs ; but even 
for evil we must speak the truth ; and the pride of a 
good man, evil as it is, and in him more evil than in an 
evil man, yet cannot be in itself such a bad thing as 
the pride of a bad man. The good man would at once 
recognize and reject the pride of a bad man. A pride 
that loves cannot be so bad as a pride that hates. Yet 
if the good man do not cast out his pride, it will sink 
him lower than the bad man’s, for it will degenerate 
into a worse pride than that of any bad man. Each 
must bring its own divinely-ordained consequence. 

There is one other point in the character of the 
Macruadh which I must mention ere I pass on ; in this 
region, and at this time, it was a great peculiarity, one 
that yielded satisfaction to few of the clan, and made 


THE CHIEF. 


47 


him even despised in the strath : he hated whisky, and 
all the drinking customs associated with it. In this he 
was not original; he had not come to hate it from 
noting the degradation and crime that attended it, or 
that as drunkenness grew, poverty grew, and that men 
who had used it in moderation took more and more 
when circumstances were adverse, turning sadness into 
slavery : he had been brought up to hate it. His father, 
who, as a clergyman doing his endeavor for the welfare 
of his flock, found himself greatly thwarted by its 
deadening influences, rendering men callous not only 
to the special vice itself, but to worse vices as well, had 
banished it from his table and his house; while the 
mother had from their very childhood instilled a loath- 
ing of the national weakness and its physical means 
into the minds of her sons. In her childhood she had 
seen its evils in her own father : by no means a drunk- 
ard, he was the less of a father because he did as 
others did. Never an evening passed on which he did 
not drink his stated portion of whisky-toddy, growing 
more and more subject to attacks of bad temper, with 
consequent injustice and unkindness. The recollection 
may have made her too sweeping in her condemnation 
of the habit, but I doubt it ; and anyhow a habit is not 
a man, and we need not much condemn that kind of 
injustice. We need not be tender over a habit which, 
though not all bad, yet leads to endless results that are 
all bad. I would follow such to its grave without many 
tears ! 

Isobel Macruadh was one of those rare women who 
preserve in years the influence gained in youth ; and 
the thing that lay at the root of the fact was her jus- 
tice. For though her highland temper would occasion- 
ally burst out in hot flame, everyone knew that if she 


48 


what’s mine’s mine. 


were in the wrong, she would see it and say it before 
any one else would tell her of it. This justice it was, 
ready against herself as for another, that fixed the in- 
fluence which her goodness and her teaching of right- 
eousness gained. 

Her eldest child, a girl, died in infancy. Alister and 
Ian were her whole earthly family, and they worshipped 
her. 


CHAPTER VL 


WORK AND WAGE, 


LISTER strode through the night, revolving no 



-£■*- questions hard to solve, though such were not 
strangers to him. He had not been to a university like 
his brother, but he had had a good educational begin- 
ning — who ever had more than a beginning? — chiefly 
from his father, who for his time and opportunity was 
even a learned man — and better, a man who knew 
what things were worth a man’s human while, and 
what were not : he could and did think about things 
that a man must think about or perish ; and his son 
Alister had made himself able to think about what he 
did not know, by doing the thing he did know. But 
now, as he walked, fighting with the wind, his bonnet 
of little shelter pulled down on his forehead, he was 
thinking mostly of Lachlan his foster-brother, whose 
devotion had done much to nourish in him the sense 
that he was head of the clan. — He had not far to go 
to reach his home — about a couple of miles. 

He had left the village a quarter of the way behind 
him, when through the darkness he spied something 
darker yet by the road-side. Going up to it, he found 
an old woman, half sitting, half standing, with a load 
of peats in a creel upon her back, unable, apparently, 
for the moment at least, to proceed. Alister knew at 
once by her shape and posture who she was. 

« Ah, mistress Conal,” he said, “ I am sorry to see 


50 


what’s mine’s mine. 


you resting on such a night so near your own door. It 
means you have filled your creel too full, and tired 
yourself too much.” 

“ I am not too much tired, Macruadh ! ” returned the 
old woman, who was proud and cross-tempered, and 
had a reputation for witchcraft, which did her neither 
much good nor much harm. 

“Well, whether you are tired or not, I believe I am 
the stronger of the two ! ” 

“ Small doubt of that, Alister ! ” said mistress Conal 
with a sigh. 

“Then I will take your creel, and you will soon be 
home. Come along ! It is going to be a wild night ! ” 

So saying he took the rope from the neck of the old 
woman right gently, and threw the creel with a strong 
swing over his shoulder, dislodging a few of the top- 
most of the peats which the poor old thing had been a 
long way to fetch. She heard them fall, and one of 
them struck her foot. She started up, almost in a 
rage. 

“ Sir ! sir ! my peats ! ” she cried. “ What would 
you be throwing away the good peats into the dark for, 
letting that swallow them they should swallow ! ” 

These words, as all that passed between them, were 
spoken neither in Scotch nor English, but in Gaelic — 
which, were I able to write it down, most of my 
readers would no more understand than they would 
Phoenician : we must therefore content ourselves with 
what their conversation comes to in English, which, if 
deficient compared with Gaelic in vowel-sounds, yet 
serves to say most things capable of being said. 

“ I am sorry, mistress Conal ; but we’ll not be losing 
them,” returned the laird gently, and began to feel 
about the road for the fallen peats. 


WORK AND WAGE. 


51 


“ How many were there, do you think, of them that 
fell ? ” he asked, rising after a vain search. 

“ How should I be knowing ! But I am sure there 
would be nigh six of them ! ” answered the woman, in 
a tone of deep annoyance — nor was it much wonder ; 
they were precious to the cold, feeble age that had gone 
so far to fetch so few. 

The laird again stooped his long back, and searched 
and searched, feeling on all sides around him. lie 
picked up three. Not another, after searching for 
several minutes, could he find. 

“I’m thinking that must be all of them, but I find 
only three! ” he said. “ Come, let us go home ! You 
must not make your cough worse for one or two peats, 
perhaps none ! ” 

“ Three, Macruadh, three ! ” insisted the old woman 
in wavering voice, broken by coughing; for, having 
once guessed six, she was not inclined to lower her 
idea of her goods. 

“ Well, well! we’ll count them when we get home ! ” 
said Alister, and gave his hand to her to help her up. 

She yielded grumbling, and, bowed still though 
relieved from her burden, tottered by his side along 
the dark, muddy, wind-and-rain-haunted road. 

“ Did you see my niece to-night at the shop ? ” she 
asked ; for she was proud of being so nearly related to 
those who kept the only shop in the hamlet. 

“ That I did,” answered the chief ; and a little talk 
followed about Lachlan in Canada. 

No one could have perceived from the way in which 
the old woman accepted his service, and the tone in 
which she spoke to him while he bent under her bur- 
den, that she no less than loved her chief ; but every- 
body only smiled at mistress Conal’s rough speech. 


52 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


That night, ere she went to bed, she prayed for the 
Macruadh as she never prayed for one of her immedi- 
ate family. And if there was a good deal of supersti- 
tion mingled with her prayer, the main thing in it was 
genuine, that is, the love that prompted it ; and if God 
heard only perfect prayers, how could he be the prayer- 
hearing God? 

Her dwelling stood but a stone’s-throw from the 
road, and presently they turned up to it by a short 
steep ascent. It was a poor hut, mostly built of turf ; 
but turf makes warm walls, impervious to the wind, 
and it was a place of her own ! — that is, she had it to 
herself, a luxury many cannot even imagine, while to 
others to be able to be alone at will seems one of the origi- 
nal necessities of life. Even the Lord, who probably had 
not always a room to himself in the poor houses he staid 
at, could not do without solitude ; therefore not unfre- 
quently spent the night in the open air, on the quiet, star- 
sered hill : there even for him it would seem to have been 
easier to find an entrance into that deeper solitude which, 
it is true, he did not need in order to find his Father and 
his God, but which apparently he did need in order to 
come into closest contact with him who was the one 
joy of his life, whether his hard life on earth, or his 
blessed life in heaven. 

The Macruadh set down the creel, and taking out 
peat after peat, piled them up against the wall, where 
already a good many waited their turn to be laid on 
the fire ; for, as the old woman said, she must carry a 
few when she could, and get ahead with her store ere 
the winter came, or she would soon be devoured ; there 
was a death that always prowled about old people, she 
said, watching for the fire to go out. Many of the 
Celts are by nature poets, and mistress Conal often 


WORK AND WAGE. 


58 


spoke in a manner seldom heard from the lips of a 
lowland woman. The common forms of Gaelic are 
more poetic than those of most languages, and could 
have originated only with a poetic people, while mistress 
Conal was by no means an ordinary type of her peo- 
ple ; maugre her ill temper and gruffness, she thought 
as well as spoke like a poetess — which fact, conjoined 
with the gift of the second sight, had helped her to the 
reputation of a witch. 

As the chief piled the peats, he counted them. She 
sat watching him and them from a stone that made 
part of a rude rampart to the hearth. 

“ I told you so, Macruadh ! ” she said, the moment 
she saw his hand return empty from the bottom of the 
creel. “ I was positive there should be three more ! — 
But what’s on the road is not with the devil.” 

“ I am very sorry ! ” said the chief, who thought it 
wiser not to contradict her. 

He would have searched his sporan for a coin to 
make up to her for the supposed loss of her peats ; but 
he knew well enough there was not a coin in it. He 
bade mistress Conal good-night, shaking hands with 
her of course, and went, closing the door carefully be- 
hind him against a great gust of wind that struggled 
to enter, threatening to sweep the fire she was now 
blowing at with her wrinkled, leather-like lips, off the 
hearth altogether — a thing that had happened before, 
to the danger of the whole building, itself of the sub- 
stance burning in the middle of its floor. 

Macruadh ran down the last few steep steps of the 
path, and jumped into the road. Through the dark- 
ness came the sound of one springing aside with a 
great start, and the click of a gun-lock. 

“ Who goes there ? ” cried a rather tremulous voice. 


54 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ The Macruadh,” answered the chief. 

The utterance apparently conveyed nothing. 

“ Do you belong to these parts ? ” said the voice. 

A former Macruadh might have answered, “No; 
these parts belong to me,” Alister curtly replied, “I 
do.” 

“Here then, my good fellow' ! take my game-bag, 
and carry it as far as the New House — if you know 
where I mean. I will give you a shilling.” 

One moment the chief spent in repressing a foolish 
indignation ; the next he spent in reflection. 

Had he seen how pale and tired was the youth with 
the gun, he would have offered to carry his bag for 
him ; to offer and to be asked, however, most people 
find different ; and here the offer of payment added to 
the difficulty. But the w r ord shilling had raised the 
vision of the old woman in her lonely cottage, brood- 
ing over the loss, real or imaginary mattered nothing, 
of her three far-borne peats. What a happy night, 
through all the wind and the rain, would a silver shil- 
ling under her chaff pillow give her! The thought 
froze the chief’s pride, and warmed his heart. What 
right had he to deny her such a pleasure ! It would 
cost him nothing! It would even bring him a little 
amusement! The chief of Clanraudh carrying his 
game-bag for a Sasunnach fellow to earn a shilling ! — 
the idea had a touch of humorous consolation in it. I 
will not assert the consolation strong enough to cast 
quite out a certain feeling of shame that mingled with 
his amusement — a shame which — is it not odd ? — he 
would not have felt had his sporan been full of sov- 
ereigns. But the shame was not altogether a shameful 
one ; a fanciful fear of degrading the chieftainship, and 
a vague sense of being an impostor, had each a part in 


WORK AND WAGE. 


55 


it. There could be nothing dishonest, however, in 
earning a shilling for poor mistress Conal ! 

“ I will carry your bag,” he said, “ but I must have 
the shilling first, if you please.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Valentine Palmer. “ You do not trust 
me ! How then am I to trust you ? ” 

“ Sir ! ” said Alister — and, again finding himself on 
the point of being foolish, laughed. 

“1 will pay you when the job is done,” said Valen- 
tine. 

“ That is quite fair, but it does not suit my pur- 
pose,” returned Alister. 

They were walking along the road side by side, but 
each could scarcely see anything of the other. The 
sportsman was searching his pockets to find a shilling. 
He succeeded, and, groping, put it in Alister’ s hand, 
with the words — 

“ All right ! it is only a shilling ! There it is ! But 
it is not yours yet : here is the bag ! ” 

Alister took the bag, turned, and ran back. 

“ Hillo ! ” cried Valentine. 

But Alister had disappeared, and as soon as he turned 
up the soft path to the cottage, his steps became inau- 
dible through the wind. 

He opened the door, went in, laid the shilling on the 
back of the old woman’s hand, and without a word 
hurried out again, and down to the road. The stranger 
was some distance ahead, tramping wearily on through 
the darkness, and grumbling at his folly in bribing a 
fellow with a shilling to carry off his game-bag. Alis- 
ter overtook him. 

“Oh, here you are after all ! ” exclaimed Valentine. 
“ I thought you had made off with work and wages 
both ! What did you do that for ? ” 


56 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I wanted to give the shilling to an old woman close 
by.” 

“ Your mother — eh ? ” 

“No.” 

“ Your grandmother ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Some relation then ! ” insisted the stranger. 

“ Doubtless,” answered the laird. 

They walked on in silence. The youth could hardly 
keep up with Alister, who thought him illbred, and did 
not care for his company. 

“ Why do you walk so fast ? ” said V alentine. 

“ Because I want to get home,” replied Alister. 

“ But I paid you to keep me company ! ” 

“You paid me to carry your bag. I will leave it at 
the New House.” 

His coolness roused the weary youth. 

“You rascal ! ” he said ; “ you keep alongside of me, 
or I’ll pepper you.” 

As he spoke, he shifted his gun. But Alister had 
already, with a few long strides, put a space of utter 
darkness between them. He had taken the shilling, 
and must carry the bag, but he did not feel bound to 
personal attendance. At the same time he could not 
deny there was reason in the man’s unwillingness to 
trust him. What had he about him to give him in 
pledge? Nothing but his watch, his father’s, a gift of 
the Prince to the head of the family ! — he could not 
profane that by depositing it in pledge for a game bag! 
He must yield to his employer, moderate his pace, and 
move side by side with the Sasunnach ! 

Again they walked for some distance in silence. 
Alister began to discover that his companion was 
weary, and his good heart spoke. 


WORK AND WAGE. 


57 


“ Let me carry your gun for you,” he said. 

“See you damned!” returned Valentine, with an 
angry laugh : he knew a trick worth two of that ! 

“ You fancy your gun protects your bag ? ” 

“Ido.” 

The same instant the gun was drawn, with swift 
quiet force, through the loop of his arm from behind. 
Feeling himself defenceless, he sprang at the highlander, 
but he eluded him, and in a moment was out of his 
reach, lost in the darkness. He heard the lock of one 
barrel snap : it was not loaded. The second barrel 
went off, and he gave a great jump, imagining himself 
struck. The next instant the gun was below his arm 
again. 

“ It will be lighter to carry now ! ” said the Macruadh ; 
“ but if you like I will take it.” 

“Take it, then. But no! By Jove, I wish there 
was light enough to see what sort of a rascal you 
look!” 

“ You are not very polite ! ” 

“ Mind your own politeness. I was never so roughly 
served in my life ! — by a fellow too that had taken my 
money ! If I knew where to find a magistrate in this 
beastly place, — ” 

“You would tell him that I emptied your gun be- 
cause you threatened me with it ? ” 

“You were going off with my bag! ” 

“ Because I undertook to carry your bag, was I bound 
to endure your company ? ” 

“ Alfster ! ” said a quiet voice out of the darkness. 

The highlander srarted, and in a tone strangely 
tremulous, yet with a kind of triumph in it, answered, 
“Ian.” 

The one word said, he stood still, but as in the act 


58 


what’s mine’s mine. 


to run, staring into the darkness. The next moment 
he flung down the game-bag, and two men were in each 
other’s arms. 

“ Where are you from, Ian?” said the chief at 
length, in a voice broken with gladness. 

All Valentine understood of the question, for it was 
in Gaelic, was its emotion, and he scorned a fellow to 
show the least sign of breaking down. 

“ Straight from Moscow,” answered the new-comer. 
“ How is our mother ? ” 

“Well, Ian, thank God!” 

“ Then, thank God, all is well ! ” 

“ What brought you home in such haste ? ” 

“ I had a bad dream about my mother, and was a 
little anxious. There was more reason too, which I 
will tell you afterwards.” 

“ What were you doing in Moscow ? Have you got a 
furlough?” 

“ To tell the truth, I am a sort of deserter. I would 
have thrown up my commission, but had not a chance. 
In Moscow I was teaching in a school to keep out of 
the way of the police. But I will tell you all by and 
by.” 

The voice was low, veiled, and sad ; the joy of the 
meeting rippled through it like a brook. 

The brothers had forgotten the stranger, and stood 
talking till the patience of Valentine was as much 
exhausted as his strength. 

“ Are you going to stand there all night ? ” he said 
at last. “ This is no doubt very interesting to you, 
but it is rather a bore to one who can neither see you, 
nor understand a word you say.” 

“ Is the gentleman a friend yours, Alister ? ” asked 
Ian. 


WORK AND WAGE. 


59 


“Not exactly. — But he is a Sasunnach,” he con- 
cluded in English, “ and we ought not to be speaking 
Gaelic.” 

“ I beg his pardon,” said Ian. “ Will you introduce 
me?” 

“ It is impossible ; I do not know his name. I never 
saw him, and don’t see him now. But he insists on my 
company.” 

“ That is a great compliment. How far ? ” 

“ To the New House.” 

“ I paid him a shilling to carry my bag,” said Valen- 
tine. “ He took the shilling, and was going to walk off 
with my bag ! ” 

“Well?” 

“Well indeed! Not at all well! How was I to 
know — ” 

“ But he didn’t — did he ? ” said Ian, whose voice 
seemed now to tingle with amusement. “ — Alister, 
you were wrong.” 

It was an illogical face-about, but Alister responded 
at once. 

“I know it,” he said. “ The moment I heard your 
voice, I knew it. — How is it, Ian,” — here he fell back 
into Gaelic — “ that when you are by me, I know what 
is right so much quicker? I don’t understand it. I 
meant to do right, but — ” 

“ But your pride got up. Alister, you always set 
out well — nobly — and then comes the devil’s turn ! 
Then you begin to do as if you repented! You don’t 
carry the thing right straight out. I hate to see the 
devil make a fool of a man like you ! Do you not know 
that in your own country you owe a stranger hospital- 
ity?” 

“ My own country ! ” echoed Alister with a groan. 


60 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“Yes, your own country — and perhaps more yours 
than it was your grandfather’s ! You know who said, 
‘ The meek shall inherit the earth ’ ! If it be not ours 
in God’s way, I for one would not care to call it mine 
another way. But we must not keep the gentleman 
standing while we talk ! ” 

“Thank you!” said Valentine. “The fact is, I’m 
dead beat.” 

“ Have you anything I could carry for you ? ” asked 
Ian. 

“ No, I thank you. — Yes; there ! if you don’t mind 
taking my gun? — you speak like a gentleman! ” 

“ I will take it with pleasure,” said Ian. 

He took the gun, and they started. 

“If you choose, Alister,” said his brother, again in 
Gaelic, “ to break through conventionalities, you must 
not expect people to allow you to creep inside them 
again the moment you please.” 

But the young fellow’s fatigue had touched Alister. 

“Are you a big man?” he said, taking Valentine 
gently by the arm. 

“Not so big as you, I’ll lay you a sovereign,” an- 
swered Valentine, wondering why he should ask. 

“ Then look here ! ” said Alister ; “ you get astride 
my shoulders, and I’ll carry you home. I believe 
you’re hungry, and that takes the pith out of you ! — 
Come,” he went on, perceiving some sign of reluctance 
in the youth, “you’ll break down if you walk much 
farther ! — Here, Ian ! you take the bag ; you can man- 
age that and the gun too ! ” 

Valentine murmured some objection; but the broth- 
ers took the thing so much as a matter of course, and 
he felt so terribly exhausted — for he had lost his way, 
and been out since the morning — that he yielded. 


WORK AMD WAGE. 


61 


Alister doubled himself up on his heels; Valentine 
got his weary legs over his stalwart shoulders ; the 
chief rose with him as if he had been no heavier than 
mistress Conal’s creel, and bore him along much re- 
lieved in his aching limbs. 

So little was the chief oppressed by his burden, that 
he and his brother kept up a stream of conversation, 
every now and then forgetting their manners and glid- 
ing off into Gaelic, but as often recollecting themselves, 
apologizing, and starting afresh upon the path of Eng- 
lish. Long before they reached the end of their jour- 
ney, Valentine, able from his perch to listen in some 
measure of ease, came to understand that he had to do, 
not with rustics, but, whatever their peculiarities, with 
gentlemen of a noteworthy sort. 

The brothers, in the joy of their reunion, talked 
much of things at home and abroad, avoiding tilings 
personal and domestic as often as they spoke English ; 
but when they saw the lights of the New House, a 
silence fell upon them. At the door, Alister set his 
burden carefully down. 

“ There ! ” he said with a laugh, u I hope I have 
earned my shilling ! ” 

“ Ten times over,” said V alentine ; “ but I know 
better now than offer to pay you. I thank you with 
all my heart.” 

The door opened, Ian gave the gun and the bag to 
the butler, and the brothers bade Valentine good-night. 

Valentine had a strange tale to tell. Sercombe re- 
fused to accept his conclusions : if he had offered the 
men half a crown apiece, he said, they would have 
pocketed the money. 


CHAPTER VII. 


MOTHER AND SON. 

T HE sun was shining bright, and the laird was out 
in his fields. His oats were nearly ready for the 
scythe, and he was judging where he had best begin to 
cut them. 

His fields lay chiefly along the banks of the stream, 
occupying the whole breadth of the valley on the east 
side of the ridge where the cottage stood. On the 
west side of the ridge, nearly parallel to, and not many 
yards from it, a small brook ran to join the stream : this 
was a march betwixt the chiefs land and Mr. Pere- 
grine Palmer’s. Their respective limits were not 
everywhere so well defined. 

The air was clear and clean, and full of life. The 
wind was asleep. A consciousness of work approach- 
ing completion filled earth and air — a mood of calm 
expectation, as of a man who sees his end drawing nigh, 
and awaits the saving judgment of the father of spirits. 
There was no song of birds — only a crow from the 
yard, or the cry of a blackcock from the hill ; the two 
streams were left to do all the singing, and they did 
their best, though their water was low. The day was 
of the evening of the year ; in the full sunshine was 
present the twilight and the coming night, but there 
was a sense of readiness on all sides. The fruits of 
the earth must be housed ; that alone remained to 
be done. 

62 


MOTHER AND SON. 


63 


When the laird had made up his mind, he turned 
towards the house — a lowly cottage, more extensive 
than many farm-houses, but looking no better. It was 
well built, with an outside wall of rough stone and 
lime, and another wall of turf within, lined in parts 
with wood, making it as warm a nest as any house of 
the size could be. The door, picturesque with abun- 
dant repair, opened by a latch into the kitchen. 

For long years the floor of the kitchen had been an 
earthen one, with the fire on a hearth in the middle of 
it, as in all the cottages ; and the smoke rose into the 
roof, keeping it very dry and warm, if also very sooty, 
and thence into the air through a hole in the middle. 
But some ten years before this time, Alister and Ian, 
mere lads, had built a chimney outside, and opening 
the wall, removed the hearth to it — with the smoke 
also, which now had its own private way to liberty. 
They then paved the floor with such stones as they 
could find, in the fields and on the hill, sufficiently flat 
and smooth on one side, and by sinking them accord- 
ing to their thickness, managed to get a tolerably even 
surface. Many other improvements followed ; and 
although it was a poor place still, it would at the time 
of Dr. Johnson’s visit to the highlands have been 
counted a good house, not to be despised by unambi- 
tious knight or poor baronet. Nor was the time yet 
over when ladies and gentlemen, of all courtesy and 
good breeding, might be found in such houses. 

In the kitchen a deal-dresser, scoured white, stood 
under one of the tiny windows, giving light enough 
for a clean-souled cook — and what window-light would 
ever be enough for one of a different sort ? There were 
only four panes in it, but it opened and closed with a 
button, and so was superior to many windows. There 


64 


what’s mine’s mine. 


was a larger on the opposite side, which at times in 
the winter nights when the cold was great, they filled 
bodily with a barricade of turf. Here, in the kitchen, 
the chief takes his meals with his lady-mother. She 
and Ian have finished their breakfast, and gone to the 
other end of the house ; the laird broke his fast long 
ago. 

A fire is burning on the hearth — small, for the mid- 
day-meal is not yet on its way. Everything is tidy ; 
the hearth is swept up, and the dishes are washed : the 
bare-footed girl is reaching the last of them to its place 
on the rack behind the dresser. She is a red-haired, 
blue-eyed Celt, with a pretty face, and a refinement of 
motion and speech rarer in some other peasantries. 

The chief enters, and takes down an old-fashioned 
gun from the wall. He wants a bird or two, for Ian’s 
home-coming is a great event. 

“ I saw a big stag last night down by the burn, sir,” 
said the girl, “ feeding as if he had been the red cow.” 

“ I don’t want him to-day, Nancy,” returned her 
master. “ Had he big horns ? ” 

“ Great horns, sir ; but it was too dark to count the 
tines.” 

“ When was it ? Why did you not tell me ? ” 

“ I thought it was morning, sir, and when I got up it 
was the middle of the night. The moon was so shiny 
that I went to the door and looked out. Just at the 
narrow leap, I saw him plain.” 

“ If you should see him again, Nancy, scare him. I 
don’t want the Sasunnachs at the New House to see 
him.” 

“Hadn’t you better take him yourself, Macruadh? 
He would make fine hams for the winter ! ” 

“Mind your own business, Nancy, and hold your 


MOTHER AND SON. 


65 


tongue,” said the chief, with a smile that took all the 
harshness from the words. “ Don’t you tell anyone 
you saw him. For what you know he may he the big 
stag!” 

“Sure no one would kill him , sir!” said the girl 
aghast. 

“ I hope not. But get the stoving-pot ready, Nancy ; 
I’m going to find a bird or two. Lest I should not 
succeed, have a couple of chickens at hand.” 

“ Sir, the mistress has commanded them already.” 

“ That is well ; but do not kill them except I am not 
back in time.” 

“I understand, sir.” 

Macruadh knew the stag as well as the horse he rode, 
and that his habit had for some time been to come 
down at night and feed on the small border of rich 
grass on the south side of the burn, between it and the 
abrupt heathery rise of the hill. For there the burn 
ran so near the hill, and the ground was so covered 
with huge masses of gray rock, that there was hardly 
room for cultivation, and the bank was left in grass. 

The stalking of the stag was the passion of the high- 
lander in that part of the country. He cared little for 
shooting the grouse, black or red, and almost despised 
those whose ambition was a full bag of such game ; but 
he dreamed day and night of killing deer. The chief, 
however, was in this matter more of a man without 
being less of a highlander. He loved the deer so much, 
saw them so much a part of the glory of mountain and 
sky, sunshine and storm, that he liked to see them liv- 
ing, not dead, and only now and then shot one, when 
the family had need of it. He felt himself indeed almost 
the father of the deer as well as of his clan, and mourned 
greatly that he could do so little now, from the limited 


66 


what’s mine’s mine. 


range of his property, to protect them. His love for 
live creatures was not quite equal to that of St. Francis, 
for he could not have conceived the thought of turning 
wolf or fox from the error of his ways ; but even the 
creatures that preyed upon others he killed only from 
a sense of duty, and with no pleasure in their death. 
The heartlessness of the common type of sportsman 
was loathsome to him. When there was not much 
doing on the farm, he would sometimes be out all night 
with his gun, it is tri\e, but he would seldom fire it, and 
then only at some beast of prey ; on the hill-side or in 
the valley he would be watching the ways and doings 
of the many creatures that roam the night — each with 
its object, each with its reasons, each with its fitting of 
means to ends. One of the grounds of his dislike to 
the new possessors of the old land was the raid he 
feared upon the wild animals. 

The laird gone, I will take my reader into the par- 
lor , as they called in English their one sitting-room. 
Shall I first tell him what the room was like, or first 
describe the two persons in it ? Led up to a picture, I 
certainly should not look first at the frame ; but a 
description is a process of painting rather than a pict- 
ure; and when you cannot see the thing in one, but 
must take each part by itself and in your mind get it 
into relation with the rest, there is an advantage, I 
think, in having a notion of the frame first. For one 
thing, you cannot see the persons without imagining 
their surroundings, and if those should be unfittingly 
imagined, they interfere with the truth of the persons, 
and you may not be able te get them right after. 

The room, then, was about fifteen feet by twelve, and 
the ceiling was low. On the white walls hung a few 
frames, of which two or three contained water-colors — 


MOTHER AND SON. 


67 


not very good, but not displeasing ; several held minia- 
ture portraits — mostly in red coats, and one or two a 
silhouette. Opposite the door hung a target of hide, 
round, and bossed with brass. Alister had come upon 
it in the house covering a meal-barrel, to which service 
it had probably been put in aid of its eluding a search 
for arms after the battle of Culloden. Never more to 
cover man’s food from mice, or his person from an 
enemy, it was raised to the walhalla of the parlor. 
Under it rested, horizontally upop two nails, the sword 
of the chief — a long and broad Andrew Ferrara, with 
a plated basket-hilt ; beside it hung a dirk — longer 
than usual, and fine in form, with a carved hilt in the 
shape of an eagle’s head and neck, and its sheath, 
whose leather was old and flaky with age, heavily 
mounted in silver. Below these was a card-table of 
marquetry with spindle-legs, and on it a work-box of 
ivory, inlaid with silver and ebony. In the corner 
stood a harp, an Erard, golden and gracious, not a 
string of it broken. In the middle of the room was a 
small square table, covered with a green cloth. An 
old-fashioned easy chair stood by the chimney; and 
one sat in it whom to see was to forget her surround- 
ings. 

In middle age she is still beautiful, with the rare 
beauty that shines from the root of the being. Her 
hair is of the darkest brown, almost black ; her eyes 
are very dark, and her skin is very fair, though the soft 
bloom, as of reflected sunset, is gone from her cheek, 
and her hair shows lines of keen silver. Her features 
are fine, clear, and regular — the chin a little strong 
perhaps, not for the size, but the fineness of the rest ; 
her form is that of a younger woman : her hand and 
foot are long and delicate. A more refined and courte- 


68 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ous presence could not have been found In the island. 
The dignity of her carriage nowise marred its grace, 
or betrayed the least consciousness ; she looked digni- 
fied because she was dignified. The form of falsehood 
which consists in assuming the look of what one fain 
would be, was, as much as any other, impossible to 
Isobel Macruadh. She wore no cap; her hair was 
gathered in a large knot near the top of her head. 
Her gown was of a dark print ; she had no ornament 
except a ring with a single ruby. She was working a 
bit of net into lace. 

She could speak Gaelic as well as any in the glen — 
perhaps better ; but to her sons she always spoke Eng- 
lish. To them indeed English was their mother-tongue, 
in the sense that English only came addressed to them- 
selves from her lips. There were, she said, plenty to 
teach them Gaelic ; she must see to their English. 

The one window of the parlor, though not large, 
was of tolerable size, but little light entered, so shaded 
was it with a rose-tree in a pot on the sill. By the 
wall opposite was a couch, and on the couch lay Ian 
with a book in his hand — a book in a strange language. 
His mother and he would sometimes be a whole morn- 
ing together and exchange no more than a word or two, 
though many a look and smile. It seemed enough for 
each to be in the other’s company. There was a quite 
peculiar bond between the two. Like so many of the 
young men of that country, Ian had been intended for 
the army ; but there was in him this much of the spirit 
of the eagle he resembled, that he passionately loved 
freedom, and had almost a gypsy’s delight in wander- 
ing. When he left college he became tutor in a Rus- 
sian family of distinction, and after that accepted a 
commission, and served the Czar for three or four years. 


MOTHER AND SON. 


69 


But wherever he went, he seemed, as he said once to 
his mother, almost physically aware of a line stretching 
between him and her, which seemed to vibrate when 
he grew anxious about her. The bond between him 
and his brother was equally strong, but in feeling 
different. Between Alister and him it was a cable; 
between his mother and him a harpstring ; in the one 
case it was a muscle, in the other a nerve. The one 
retained, the other drew him. Given to roaming as he 
was, again and again he returned, from pure love-long- 
ing, to what he always felt as the protection of his 
mother. It was protection indeed that he often sought 
— protection from his own glooms, which nothing but 
her love seemed able to tenuate. 

He was tall — if an inch above six feet be tall, but 
not of his brother’s fine proportion. He was thin, 
with long slender fingers and feet like his mother’s. 
His small, strong bones were covered with little more 
than hard muscle, but every motion of limb or body 
was grace. At times, when lost in thought and uncon- 
scious of movement, an observer might have imagined 
him in conversation with some one unseen, towards 
whom he was carrying himself with courtesy : plain it 
was that courtesy with him was not a graft upon the 
finest stock, but an essential element. His forehead 
was rather low, freckled, and crowned with hair of a 
foxy red ; his eyes were of the glass-gray or green 
loved by our elder poets ; his nose was a very eagle in 
itself — large and fine. He more resembled the mask 
of the dead Shakspere than any other I have met, only 
in him the proportions were a little exaggerated ; his 
nose was a little too large, and his mouth a little too 
small for the mask ; but the mingled sweetness and 
strength in the curves of the latter prevented the im- 


70 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


pression of weakness generally given by the association 
of such a nose ancl such a mouth. On his short upper 
lip was a small light moustache, and on his face not a 
hair more. In rest his countenance wore a great calm- 
ness, but a calmness that might seem rooted in sadness. 

While the mother might, more than once in a day, 
differ to fault-finding from her elder-born — whom she 
admired, notwithstanding, as well as loved, from the 
bottom of her heart — she was never known to say a 
word in opposition to the younger. It was even whis- 
pered that she was afraid of him. It was not so ; but 
her reverence for Ian was such that, even when she 
felt bound not to agree with him, she seldom had the 
confidence that, differing from him, she was in the 
right. Sometimes in the middle of the night she would 
slip like a ghost into the room where he lay, and sit by 
his bed till the black cock, the gray cock, the red cock 
crew. The son might be awake all the time, and the 
mother suspect him awake, yet no word passed between 
them. She would rise and go as she came. Her feel- 
ing for her younger son was like that of Hannah for 
her eldest — intensest love mixed with strangest rever- 
ence. But there were vast alternations and inexplica- 
ble minglings in her thoughts of him. At one moment 
she would regard him as gifted beyond his fellows for 
some great work, at another be filled with a horrible 
fear that he was in rebellion against the God of his 
life. Doubtless mothers are far too ready to think 
their sons above the ordinary breed of sons : self, un- 
possessed of God, will worship itself in its offspring ; 
yet the sons whom holy mothers have regarded as born 
to great things and who have passed away without 
sign, may have gone on towards their great things. 
Whether this mother thought too much of her son or 


MOTHER AND SON. 


71 


not, there were questions moving in his mind which 
she could not have understood — even then when he 
would creej) to her bed in the morning to forget in her 
arms-the terrible dreams of the night, or when at even- 
ing he would draw his little stool to her knee, unable 
or unwilling to enjoy his book anywhere but by her 
side. 

What gave him his unconscious power over his 
mother, was, first, the things he said, and next, the 
things he did not say ; for he seemed to her to dwell 
always in a rich silence. Yet throughout was she aware 
of a something between them, across which they could 
not meet ; it was in part her distress at the seeming 
impossibility of effecting a spiritual union with her 
son, that made her so desirous of personal proximity 
to him ; such union is by most thinking people pre- 
sumed impossible without consent of opinion, and this 
mistake rendered her unable to feel near him, to be at 
home with him ; if she had believed that they under- 
stood each other, that they were of like opinion , she 
would not have been half so unhappy when he went 
away, would not have longed half so grievously for his 
return. Ian on his part understood his mother, but 
knew she did not understand him, and was therefore 
troubled. Hence it resulted that always after a time 
came the hour — which never came to her — when he 
could endure proximity without oneness no longer, and 
would suddenly announce his departure. And after a 
day or two of his absence, the mother would be doubly 
wretched to find a sort of relief in it, and would spend 
wakeful nights trying to oust it as the merest fancy, 
persuading herself that she was miserable, and nothing 
but miserable, in the loss of her darling. 

Naturally then she would turn more to A lister, and 


72 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


his love was a strengthening tonic to her sick mother- 
hood. He was never jealous of either. Their love 
for each other was to him a love. He too would mourn 
deeply over his brother’s departure, but it became at 
once his business to comfort his mother. And while 
she had no suspicion of the degree to which he suf- 
fered, it drew her with fresh love to her elder born, and 
gave her a renewal of the quiet satisfaction in him that 
was never absent, when she saw how he too missed Ian. 
Their mutual affection was indeed as true and strong 
as a mother could desire it. “ If such love,” she said 
to herself, “ had appeared in the middle of its history 
instead of now at its close, the transmitted affection 
would have been enough to bind the clan together for 
centuries more ! ” 

It was with a prelusive smile that shone on the 
mother’s heart like the opening of heaven, that Ian 
lowered his book to answer her question. She had 
said — 

“ Did you not feel the cold very much at St. Peters- 
burg last winter, Ian ? ” 

“ Yes, mother, at times,” he answered. “ But every- 
body wears fur; the peasant his sheep-skin, the noble 
his silver fox. They have to fight the cold ! Nose and 
toes are in constant danger. Did I never tell you what 
happened to me once in that way ? I don’t think I ever 
did ! ” 

“ You never tell me anything, Ian ! ” said his mother, 
looking at him with a loving sadness. 

“ I was suddenly stopped in the street by what I took 
for an unheard-of insult : I actually thought my great 
proboscis was being pulled ! If I had been as fiery as 
Alister, the man would have found his back, and I 
should have lost my nose. Without the least warning 


MOTHER AND SON. 


73 


a handful of snow was thrust in my face, and my nose 
had not even a chance of snorting with indignation, it 
found itself so twisted in every direction at once ! But 
I have a way, in any sudden occurrence, of feeling 
perplexed enough to want to be sure before doing any- 
thing, and if it has sometimes kept me from what was 
expedient, it has oftener saved me from what was 
wrong : it took but another instant to understand that 
it was the promptitude of a fellow Christian to pre- 
serve to me my nose, already whitening in frosty death : 
he was rubbing it hard with snow, the orthodox remedy ! 
My whole face presently sharpened into one burning 
spot, and taking off my hat, I thanked the man for his 
most kind attention. He pointed out that any time 
spent in explaining to me the condition of my nose, 
would have been pure loss : as the danger was pressing, 
he attacked it at once ! I was indeed entirely uncon- 
scious of the state of my beak — the worst symptom 
of any ! ” 

“ I trust, Ian, you will not go back to Russia ! ” said 
his mother, after a little more talk about frost-biting. 
“ Surely there is work for you at home ! ” 

“What can I do at home, mother? You have no 
money to buy me a commission, and I am not much 
good at farm-work. Alister says I am not worth a 
horseman’s wages ! ” 

“You could find teaching at home; or you could go 
into the church. We might manage that, for you 
would only have to attend the divinity classes.” 

“ Mother ! would you put me into one of the priests’ 
offices that I may eat a piece of bread ? As for teach- 
ing, there are too many hungry students ready for that : 
I could not take the bread out of their mouths ! And 
in truth, mother, I could not endure it — except it were 


74 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


required of me. I can live on as little as any, but it 
must be with some liberty. I have surely inherited the 
spirit of some old sea-rover, it is so difficult for me to 
rest ! I am a very thistle-down for wandering ! I must 
know how my fellow-beings live ! I should like to be 
one man after another — each for an hour or two ! ” 
“Your father used to say there was much Norse 
blood in the family.” 

“ There it is, mother ! I cannot help it ! ” 

“I don’t like your holding the Czar’s commission, 
Ian — somehow I don’t like it. He is a tyrant.” 

“ I am going to throw it up, mother.” 

“ I am glad of that ! How did you ever get it ? ” 
“Oddly enough, through the man that pulled my 
nose. I had a chance afterwards of doing him a good 
turn, which he was most generous in acknowledging ; 
and as he belonged to the court, I had the offer of a 
lieutenant’s commission. The Scotch are in favor.” 

A deep cloud had settled on the face of the young 
man. The lady looked at him for a moment with 
keenest mother-eyes, suppressed a deep sigh, and be- 
took herself again to her work. Ere she thought how 
he might take it, another question broke from her lips. 

“ What sort of church have you to go to in St. 
Petersburg, Ian?” she said. 

Ian was silent a moment, thinking how to be true, 
and not hurt her more than could not be helped. 

“There are a thousand places of worship there, 
mother,” he returned, with a curious smile. 

“ Any presbyterian place ? ” she asked. 

“ I believe so,” he replied. 

“ Ian, you haven’t given up praying ? ” 

“ If ever I prayed, mother, I certainly have not 
given it up.” 


MOTHER AND SON. 


75 


“ Ever prayed, Ian ! When a mere child you prayed 
like an aged Christian ! ” 

“ Ah, mother, that was a sad pity ! I asked for things 
of which I felt no need ! I was a hypocrite ! I ought 
to have prayed like a little child ! ” 

The mother was silent : she it was who had taught 
him to pray thus — making him pray aloud in her hear- 
ing! and this was the result ! The premature blossom 
had withered! she said to herself. But it was no 
blossom, only a muslin flower ! 

“ Then you don’t go to church ! ” she said at 
length. 

“ Not often, mother dear,” he answered. “When I 
do go, I like to go to the church of the country I haj> 
pen to be in. Going to church and praying to God are 
not the same thing.” 

“ Then you do say your prayers ? Oh, do not tell 
me you never bow down before your maker ! ” 

“ Shall I tell you w here I think I did once pray to 
God, mother?” he said, after a little pause, anxious to 
soothe her suffering. “At least I did think, then, that 
I prayed ! ” he added. 

“ It was not this morning, then, before you left your 
chamber?” 

“ No, mother,” answered Ian ; “ I did not pray this 
morning, and I never say prayers.” 

The mother gave a gasp, but said nothing. Ian went 
on again. 

“I should like to tell you, mother, about that time 
when I am almost sure I prayed ! ” 

“ I should like to hear about it,” she answered, with 
strangest minglings of emotion. At one and the same 
instant she felt parted from her son by a gulf into 
which she must cast herself to find him, and that he 


76 


what’s mine’s mine. 


stood on a height of sacred experience which she 
never could hope to climb. 44 Oh for his father to talk 
to him ! ” she said to herself. He was a power on her 
soul which she almost feared. If he were to put forth 
his j)Ower, might he not drag her down into unbelief ? 

It was the first time they had come so close in their 
talk. The moment his mother spoke out, Ian had 
responded. He was anxious to be open with her so far 
as he could, and forced his natural taciturnity, the 
prime cause of which was his thoughtfulness : it was 
hard to talk where was so much thinking to be done, 
so little time to do it in, and so little progress made by 
it ! But wherever he could keep his mother company, 
there he would not leave her! Just as he opened his 
mouth, however, to begin his narration, the door of the 
room also opened, flung wide by the small red hand of 
Nancy, and two young ladies entered. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


A MORNING CALL. 

H AD Valentine known who the brothers were, or 
where they lived, he would before now have 
called to thank them again for their kindness to him, 
but he imagined they had some distance to go after 
depositing him, and had not yet discovered his mistake. 
The visit now paid had nothing to do with him. 

The two elder girls, curious about the pretty cottage, 
had come wandering down the spur, or hill-toe, as far 
as its precincts — if precincts they may be called where 
was no fence, only a little grove and a less garden. 
Beside the door stood a milk-pail and a churn, set out 
to be sweetened by the sun and wind. It .was very 
rural, they thought, and very homely, but not so attract- 
ive as some cottages in the south : — it indicated a 
rusticity honored by the most unceremonious visit from 
its superiors ! Thus without hesitation concluding, Chris- 
tina, followed by Mercy, walked in at the open door, 
found a barefooted girl in the kitchen, and spoke 
pleasantly to her. She, in simple hospitality forget- 
ting herself, made answer in Gaelic ; and, never doubt- 
ing the ladies had come to call upon her mistress, led 
the way, and the girls, without thinking, followed her 
to the parlor. 

As they came, they had been talking. Had they 
been in any degree truly educated, they would have 
been quite capable of an opinion of their own, for they 

77 


78 


what’s mine’s mine. 


had good enough faculties ; but they had never been 
really taught to read ; therefore, with the utmost con- 
lidence, they had been passing judgment upon a book 
from which they had not gathered the slightest notion 
as to the idea or intention of the writer. Christina 
was of that numerous class of readers, who, if you 
show one thing better or worse than another, will with- 
out hesitation report that you love the one and hate the 
other. If you say, for instance, that it is a worse and 
yet more shameful thing for a man to break his wife’s 
heart by systematic neglect, than to strike her and be 
sorry for it, such readers give out that you approve of 
wife-beating, and perhaps write to expostulate with you 
on your brutality. If you express pleasure that a poor 
maniac should have succeeded in escaping through the 
door of death from his haunting demom, they accuse 
you of advocating suicide. Mercy was not yet afloat 
on the sea of essential lie whereon Christina swung to 
every wave. 

The question they had been discussing was, whether 
the hero of the story was worthy the name of lover, 
seeing he deferred offering his hand to the girl because 
she told her mother a fib to account for her being with 
him in the garden after dark. “ It was cowardly and 
unfair,” said Christina: “was it not for his sake she 
did it?” Mercy did not think to say “ Was it? ” as she 
well might. “ Don’t you see, Chrissy,” she said, u he 
reasoned this way : ‘ If she tell her mother a lie, she 
may tell me a lie some day too ! ’ ? ” So indeed the 
youth did reason ; but it occurred to neither of his 
critics to note the fact that he would not have minded 
the girl’s telling her mother the lie, if he could have 
been certain she would never tell him one ! In regard 
to her hiding from him certain passages with another 


A MORNING CALL. 


79 


gentleman, occurring between this event and his pro- 
posal, Christina judged he had no right to know them, 
and if he had, their concealment was what he deserved. 

When the girl, who would have thought it rude to 
ask their names — if I mistake not it was a point in 
highland hospitality to entertain without such inquiry 

— led the way to the parlor, they followed, expecting 
they did not know what : they had heard of the cow- 
house, the stable, and even the pigsty, being under the 
same roof in these parts ! When the opening door 
disclosed “lady” Macruadh, every inch a chieftain’s 
widow, their conventional breeding failed them a little ; 
incapable of recognizing a refinement beyond their own, 
they were not incapable of feeling its influence ; and 
though they had not yet learned how to be rude with 
propriety in unproved circumstances — still less how to 
be gracious without a moment’s notice. But when a 
young man sprung from a couch, and the stately lady 
rose and advanced to receive them, it was too late to 
retreat, and for a moment they stood abashed, feeling, 
I am glad to say, like intruders. The behavior of the 
lady and gentleman, however, speedily set them par- 
tially at ease. The latter, with movements more than 
graceful, for they were gracious, and altogether free of 
scroll-pattern or Polonius-flourish, placed chairs, and 
invited them to be seated, and the former began to talk 
as if their entrance were the least unexpected thing in 
the world. Leaving them to explain their visit or not 
as they saw fit, she spoke of the weather, the harvest, 
the shooting; feared the gentlemen would be disnp- 
pointed : the birds were quite healthy, but not numer- 
ous — they had too many enemies to multiply ! asked 
if they had seen the view from such and such a point ; 

— in short, carried herself as one to whom cordiality 


80 


what’s mine’s mine. 


to strangers was a duty. But she was not taken with 
them. Her order of civilization was higher than theirs ; 
and the simplicity as well as old-fashioned finish of her 
consciousness recoiled a little — though she had not 
experience enough of a certain kind to be able at 
once to say what it was in the manner and expression 
of the young ladies that did not please her. 

Mammon, gaining more and more of the upper hand 
in all social relations, has done much to lower the petite 
as well as the grande morale of the country — the good 
breeding as well as the honesty. Unmannerliness with 
the completest self-possession, is a poor substitute for 
stiffness, a poorer for courtesy. Respect and gracious- 
ness from each to each is of the very essence of Christi- 
anity, independently of rank, or possession, or relation. 
A certain roughness and rudeness have usurped upon 
the intercourse of the century. It comes of the spread 
of imagined greatness ; true greatness, unconscious of 
itself, cannot find expression other than gracious. In 
the presence of another, a man of true breeding is but 
faintly aware of his own self, and keenly aware of the 
other’s .self. Before the human — that bush which, 
however trodden and peeled, yet burns with the divine 
presence — the man who thinks of the homage due to 
him, and not of the homage owing by him, is essen- 
tially rude. Mammon is slowly stifling and desiccating 
Rank ; both are miserable deities, but the one is yet 
meaner than the other. Unrefined families with money 
are received with open arms and honors paid, in circles 
where a better breeding than theirs has hitherto pre- 
vailed: this, working along with the natural law of 
corruption where is no aspiration, has gradually caused 
the deterioration of which I speak. Courtesy will 
never regain her former position, but she will be raised 


A MORNING CALL. 


81 


to a much higher ; like Duty, she will be known as a 
daughter of the living God, “ the first stocke father of 
gentilnes ; ” for in his neighbor every man will see a 
revelation of the Most High. 

Without being able to recognize the superiority of a 
woman who lived in a cottage, the young ladies felt 
and disliked it ; the matron felt the commonness of 
the girls, without knowing what exactly it was. The 
girls, on the other hand, were interested in the young 
man : he looked like a gentleman ! Ian was interested 
in the young women : he thought they were shy, when 
they were only “ put out,” and wished to make them 
comfortable — in which he quickly succeeded. His 
unconsciously commanding air in the midst of his great 
courtesy, roused their admiration, and they had not 
been many minutes in his company ere they were sat- 
isfied that, however it was to be accounted for, the 
young man was in truth very much of a gentleman. 
It was an unexpected discovery of northern produce, 
and “ the estate ” gathered interest in their eyes. Chris- 
tina did the greater part of the talking, but both did 
their best to be agreeable. 

Ian saw quite as well as his mother what ordinary 
girls they were, but, accustomed to the newer modes in 
manner and speech, though uncorrupted by them, he 
was not shocked by movements and phrases that an- 
noyed her. The mother apprehended fascination, and 
was uneasy, though far from showing it. 

When they rose, Ian attended them to the door, 
leaving his mother anxious, for he would accompany 
them home she feared. Till he returned, she did not 
resume her seat. 

The girls took their way along the ridge in silence, 
till the ruin was between them and the cottage, when 


82 


what’s mine’s mine. 


they burst into laughter. They were ladies enough 
not to laugh till out of sight, but not ladies enough to 
see there was nothing to laugh at. 

“ A harp, too ! ” said Christina. “ Mercy, I believe 
we are on the top of mount Ararat, and have this 
very moment left the real Noah’s ark, patched into a 
cottage ! Who can they be ? ” 

“ Gentlefolk evidently,” said Mercy — “ perhaps old- 
fashioned people from Inverness.” 

“ The young man must have been to college ! — In 
the north, you know,” continued Christina, thinking 
with pride that her brother was at Oxford, u nothing 
is easier than to get an education, such as it is! It 
costs in fact next to nothing. Ploughmen send their 
sons to St. Andrew’s and Aberdeen to make gentlemen 
of them ! Fancy ! ” 

“ You must allow that in this case they have suc- 
ceeded ! ” 

“ I didn’t mean his father was a ploughman ! That 
is impossible ! Besides, I heard him call that very 
respectable person mother ! She is not a ploughman’s 
wife, but evidently a lady of the middle class. ” 

Christina did not reckon herself or her people to be- 
long to the middle class. How it was it is not quite 
easy to say — perhaps the tone of implied contempt 
with which her father spoke of the lower classes, and 
the quiet negation with which her mother would allude 
to shopkeepers, may have had to do with it — but the 
young people of the family all imagined themselves to 
belong to the upper classes ! It was a pity that there 
was no title in it ; but any one of them might well 
marry a coronet ! There were indeed higher than they ; 
a duke was higher ; the queen was higher — but that 
was pleasant ! It was nice to have some to look up to ! 


A MORNING CALL. 


83 


On anyone living in a humble house, not to say a 
poor cottage, they looked down, as the case might be, 
with indifference or patronage ; they little dreamed 
how, had she known all about them, the respectable 
person in the cottage would have looked down upon 
them! At the same time the laugh in which they now 
indulged was not altogether one of amusement ; it was 
in part an effort to avenge themselves of a certain 
uncomfortable feeling of rebuke. 

“ I will tell you my theory, Mercy ! ” Christina went 
on. “ The lady is the widow of an Indian officer — 
perhaps a colonel. Some of their widows are left very 
poor, though, their husbands having been in the ser- 
vice of their country, they think no small beer of them- 
selves ! The young man has a military air which 
he may have got from his father ; or he may be an 
officer himself : young officers are always poor ; that’s 
What makes them so nice to flirt with. I wonder 
whether he really is an officer! We’ve actually called 
upon the people, and come away too, without knowing 
their names ! ” 

“ I suppose they’re from the New House ! ” said Ian, 
returning after he had bowed the ladies from the thresh- 
old, rewarded with a bewitching smile from the elder, 
and a shy glance from the younger. 

“Where else could they be from?” returned his 
mother ; — “ come to make our country yet poorer ! ” 

“ They’re not English ! ” 

“ Not they ! — vulgar people from Glasgow ! ” 

“ I think you are too hard on them, mother ! They 
are not exactly vulgar. I thought, indeed, there was a 
sort of gentleness about them you do not often meet 
in Scotch girls ! ” 

“ In the lowlands, I grant, Ian ; but the daughter of 


84 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the poorest tacksman of the Macruadhs has a man- 
ner and a modesty I have seen in no Sasunnach girl 
yet. Those girls are bold ! ” 

“ Self-possessed, perhaps ! ” said Ian. 

Upon the awkwardness he took for shyness, had fol- 
lowed a reaction. It was with the young ladies a part 
of good breeding, whatever mistake they made, not to 
look otherwise than contented with themselves : having 
for a moment failed in this principle, they were eager 
to make up for it. 

“ Girls are different from what they used to be, I 
fancy, mother ! ” added Ian thoughtfully. 

“ The world changes very fast,” said the mother 
sadly. She was thinking, like Rebecca, if her sons 
took a fancy to these who were not daughters of the 
land, what good would her life do her. 

“ Ah, mother, dear,” said Ian, “ I have never ” — and 
as he spoke the cloud deepened on his forehead — 
“ seen more than one woman whose ways and manners 
reminded me of you ! ” 

“ And what was she ? ” the mother asked, in pleased 
alarm. 

But she almost repented the question when she saw 
how low the cloud descended on his countenance. 

“ A princess, mother. She is dead,” he answered, 
and turning walked so gently from the room that it 
was impossible for his mother to detain him. 


CHAPTER IX. 


MR. SERCOMBE. 

T 1 1HE next morning, soon after sunrise, the laird 
began to cut his barley. Ian would gladly have 
helped, but Alister had a notion that such labor was 
not fit for him. 

“ I had a comical interview this morning,” he said, 
entering the kitchen at dinner-time. “ I was out be- 
fore my people, and was standing by the burn-side 
near the foot-bridge, when I heard somebody shouting, 
and looked up. There was a big English fellow in 
gray on the top of the ridge, with his gun on his 
shoulder, holloing. I knew he was English by his 
holloing. It was plain it was to me, but not choosing 
to be at his beck and call, I took no heed. ‘Hullo, 
you there ! wake up ! ’ he said. ‘ What should I wake 
up for?’ I returned. ‘To carry my bag. You don’t 
seem to have anything to do ! I’ll give you five shil- 
lings.’” 

“You see to what you expose yourself by your 
unconventionalities, Alister!” said his brother, with 
mock gravity. 

“It was not the fellow we carried home the other 
night, Ian ; it was one twice his size. It would have 
taken all I had to carry him home ! ” 

“ The others must have pointed you out to him ! ” 

“ It was much too dark for him to know me again.” 

“ You forget the hall-lamp ! ” said Ian. 

85 


86 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Ah, yes, to be sure ! I had forgotten ! ” answered 
Alister. “ To tell the truth, I thought, when I took 
his shilling, he would never know me from Nebuchad- 
nezzar: that is the one thing I am ashamed of — I did 
in the dark what perhaps I should not have done in the 
daylight! — I don’t mean I would not have carried him 
and his bag too! It’s only the shilling! Now of course 
I will hold my face to it; but I thought it better to be 
short with a fellow like that.” 

“Well?” 

“ ‘ You’ll want prepayment, no doubt ! ’ he went on, 
putting his hand in his pocket. Those Sasunnach fel- 
lows think any highlandman keen as a hawk after 
their dirty money ! ” 

“ They have too good reason in some parts ! ” said 
his mother. “ It is not so bad here yet, but there is a 
great difference in that respect. The old breed is fast 
disappearing. What with the difficulty of living by 
the hardest work, and the occasional chance of earning 
a shilling easily, many have turned both idle and 
greedy.” 

“ That’s you and your shilling, Alister ! ” said Ian. 

“ I confess,” returned Alister, “ if I had foreseen 
what an idea of the gentlemen of the country I might 
give, I should have hesitated. But I haven’t begun to 
be ashamed yet ! ” 

“ Ashamed, Alister ! ” cried Ian. “ What does it 
matter what a fellow like that thinks of you ? ” 

“ And mistress Conal has her shilling ! ” said the 
mother. 

“If the thing was ‘right,” pursued Ian, “no harm 
can come of it; if it was not right, no end of harm 
may come. Are you sure it was good for mistress 
Conal to have that shilling, Alister? What if it be 


MR. SERCOMBE. 


87 


drawing away her heart from him who is watching his 
old child in her turf-hut ? What if the devil be grin- 
ning at her from that shilling ? ” 

“ Ian ! if God had not meant her to have that shil- 
ling, he would not have let Alister earn it.” 

“Certainly God can take care of her from a shil- 
ling ! ” said Ian, with one of his strangely sweet smiles. 
“I was only trying Alister, mother.” 

“ I confess I did not like the thought of it at first,” 
resumed Mrs. Macruadh ; “ but it was mere pride ; for 
when I thought of your father, I knew he would have 
been pleased with it.” 

“ Then, mother, I am glad ; and I don’t care what 
Ian or any Sasunnach under the sun, may think of me.” 

“ But you haven’t told us,” said Ian, “ how the thing 
ended.” 

w I said to the fellow,” resumed Alister, “ that I had 
my shearing to do, and hadn’t the time to go with him. 
‘ Is this your season for sheep-shearing ? ’ said he. 
‘We call cutting the corn shearing,’ I answered, ‘be- 
cause in these parts we use the reaping hook.’ ‘ That 
is a great waste of labor ! ’ he returned. I did not tell 
him that some of our land would smash his machines 
like toys. ‘ How ? ’ I asked. ‘ It costs so much more,’ 
he said. ‘But it feeds so many more!’ I replied. 
‘ Oh yes, of course, if you don’t want the farmer to 
make a living! ’ ‘I manage to make a living,’ I said. 
‘Then you are the farmer? ’ ‘ So it would appear.’ ‘ I 
beg your pardon ; I thought, — ’ ‘You thought I was 
an idle fellow, glad of an easy job to keep the life in 
me ! ’ ‘ They tell me you were deuced glad of a job the 
other night.’ ‘ So I was. I wanted a shilling for a 
poor woman, and hadn’t one to give her without going 
home a mile and a half for it ! ’ By this time he had 


88 


what’s mine’s mine. 


come down, and I had gone a few steps to meet him ; 
I did not want to seem unfriendly. ‘Upon my word, 
it was very good of you ! The old lady ought to be 
grateful,’ he said. ‘So ought we all,’ I answered/ — 
I to your friend for the shilling, and he to me for tak- 
ing his bag. He did me one good turn for my poor 
woman, and I did him another for his poor legs ! ’ ‘So 
you’re quits!’ said he. ‘Not at all,’ I answered ; ‘on 
the contrary, we are under mutual obligation.’ ‘ I 
don’t see the difference ! — Hillo, there’s a hare ! ’ And 
up went his gun to his shoulder. ‘ None of that ! ’ I 
cried, and knocked up the barrel. ‘ W hat do you 
mean?’ he roared, looking furious. ‘Get out of the 
way, or I’ll shoot you .’ ‘ There will be murder then as 

well as poaching!’ I said. ‘Poaching!’ he shouted, 
with a scornful laugh. ‘That rabbit is mine,’ I said; 
‘ I will not have it killed.’ ‘ Cool ! — on Mr. Palmer’s 
land ! ’ said he. ‘ The land is mine, and I am my own 
gamekeeper!’ I rejoined. ‘You look like it!’ he re- 
turned. ‘You put your gun on half-cock, and go after 
your birds ! — not in this direction though,’ I said, and 
turned and left him.” 

“That was not just the right way,” said Ian. 

“I did lose my temper rather.” 

“ There was no occasion. It was a mistake on his 
part.” 

“ I almost expected to hear him fire after I left him 
for there was the rabbit he took for a hare lurching 
slowly away in full view ! I’m glad he didn’t : I always 
feel bad after a row ! ” 

“ Is the conscience getting fastidious, do you think, 
Alister ? ” said Ian. 

“ How is anybody to know that when he’s got to 
obey it ? ” 


MR. SERCOMBE. 


89 


“ True — so long as we suspect no mistake ! ” 

“ So long as it agrees with the Bible, Ian ! ” said the 
mother. 

“ The Bible is a big book, mother, and the things in 
it are of many sorts, ” returned Ian. “ The Lord did 
not approve of every thing in it.” 

“ Ian ! Ian ! I am shocked to hear you ! ” 

44 It is the truth, mother.” 

44 What would your father have said ! ” 

44 4 He that loveth father or mother more than me is 
not worthy of me.’ ” 

Ian rose from the table, knelt by his mother, and 
laid his head on her shoulder. 

She was silent, pained by his words, and put her arm 
round him as if to shield him from the evil one. Hom- 
age to will and word of the Master, apart from the 
acceptance of certain doctrines concerning him, was in 
her eyes not merely defective but dangerous. To love 
the Lord with the love of truest obedience ; to believe 
him the son of God and the saver of men with absolute 
acceptance of the heart, was far from enough ! it was 
but sentimental affection ! 

A certain young preacher in Scotland some years 
ago, accused by an old lady of preaching works, took 
refuge in the Lord’s sermon on the mount : 44 Ow ay ! ” 
answered the partisan, 44 but he was a varra yoong mon 
whan he preacht that sermon ! ” 

Alister rose and went : there was to him something 
specially sacred in the communion of his mother and 
brother. Heartily he held with Ian, but shrank from 
any difference with his mother. For her sake he re- 
ceived Sunday after Sunday in silence what was to him 
a bushel of dust with here and there a bit of mouldy 
bread in it ; but the mother did not imagine any great 


90 


what’s mine’s mine. 


coincidence of opinion between her and Alister any 
more than between her and Ian. She had not the 
faintest notion how much genuine faith both of them 
had, or how it surpassed her own in vitality. 

But while Ian seemed to his brother, who knew him 
best, hardly touched with earthly stain, Alister, not- 
withstanding his large and dominant humanity, wds 
still in the troublous condition of one trying to do right 
against a powerful fermentation of pride. He held 
noblest principles ; but the sediment of generations was 
too easily stirred up to cloud them. He was not quite 
honest in his attitude towards some of his ancestors, 
judging them far more leniently than he would have 
judged others. He loved his neighbor, but his neigh- 
bor was mostly of his own family or his own clan. He 
might have been unjust for the sake of his own — a 
small fault in the eyes of the world, but a great fault 
indeed in a nature like his, capable of being so much 
beyond it. For, while the faults of a good man cannot 
be such evil things as the faults of a bad man, they are 
more blameworthy, and greater faults than the same 
would be in a bad man : we must not confuse the guilt 
of the person with the abstract evil of the thing. 

Ian was one of those blessed few who doubt in virtue 
of a larger faith. While its roots were seeking a deeper 
soil, it could not show so fast a growth above ground. 
He doubted most about the things he loved best, 
while he devoted the energies of a mind w T hose keenness 
almost masked its power, to discover possible ways of 
believing them. To the wise his doubts would have 
been his best credentials ; they were worth tenfold the 
faith of most. It was truth, and higher truth, he was 
always seeking. The sadness which colored his deepest 
individuality, only one thing could ever remove — the 


MR. SERCOMBE. 


91 


conscious presence of the Eternal. This is true of all 
sadness, but Ian knew it. 

He overtook Alister on his way to the barley-field. 

“ I have been trying to find out wherein lay the false- 
ness of the position in which you found yourself this 
morning,” said he. “ There could be nothing wrong in 
doing a small thing for its reward any more than a great 
one ; where I think you went wrong was in assuming 
your social position afterwards : — you should have wait- 
ed for its being accorded you. There was no occasion to 
be offended with the man. You ought to have seen 
how you must look to him, and given him time. I don’t 
perceive why you should be so gracious to old mistress 
Conal, and so hard upon him. Certainly you would 
not speak as he did to any man, but he has been brought 
up differently; he is not such a gentleman as you can- 
not help being. In a word, you ought to have treated 
him as an inferior, and been more polite to him.” 


CHAPTER X. 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 

P ARTLY, it may be, from such incidents at the 
outset of their acquaintance, there was for some 
time no further meeting betwixt any of the chiefs 
family and that of the new laird. There was indeed, 
little to draw them together except common isolation. 
Valentine would have been pleased to show gratitude to 
his helpers on that stormy night, but after his sister’s 
account of their call, he felt not only ashamed, which 
was right, but ashamed to show his shame, which was 
a fresh shame. The girls on their part made so much 
of what they counted the ridiculous elements of their 
“ adventure,” that, natural vengeance on their untruth- 
fulness, they came themselves to see in it almost only 
what was ridiculous. In the same spirit Mr. Sercombe 
recounted his adventure with Alister, which annoyed 
his host, who had but little acquaintance with the 
boundaries of his land. From the additional servants 
they had hired in the vicinity, the people of the New 
House gathered correct information concerning those 
at the cottage, but the honor in which they were held 
only added to the ridicule they associated with them. 
On the other side also there was little inclination 
towards a pursuit of intercourse. Mrs. Macruadh, from 
Nancy’s account and the behavior of the girls, divined 
the explanation of their visit ; and, as their mother did 
not follow it up, took no notice of it. In the mind of 
92 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 


93 


Mercy, however, lurked a little thorn, with the bluntest 
possible sting of suspicion, every time she joined in a 
laugh at the people of the cottage, that she was not 
quite just to them. 

The shooting, such as it was, went on, the sleeping 
and the eating, the walking and the talking. Long let- 
ters were written from the New House to female friends 
— letters with the flourishes if not the matter of wit, 
and funny tales concerning the natives, whom, because 
of their poor houses and unintelligibility, they repre- 
sented as semi-savages^ The young men went back to 
Oxford ; and the time for the return of the family to 
civilization seemed drawing nigh. 

It happened about this time, however, that a certain 
speculation in which Mr. Peregrine Palmer was very 
materially interested failed utterly, depriving him of 
the consciousness of a good many thousands, and pro- 
ducing in him the feeling of a lady of moderate means 
when she loses her purse : he must save it off something ! 
For though he spent freely, he placed a great value on 
money — as well he might, seeing it gave him all the 
distinction which before everything else he prized. 
He did not know what a poor thing it is to be distin- 
guished among men, therefore did not like losing his 
thousands. Having by failure sinned against Mammon, 
he must do something to ease the money-conscience 
that ruled his conduct ; and the first thing that oc- 
curred to him was, to leave his wife and daughters 
where they were for the winter. None of them were 
in the least delicate, his wife professed herself fond of 
a country life ; it would give the girls a good oppor- 
tunity for practice, drawing, and study generally, and 
he would find them a suitable governess! He talked 
the matter over with Mrs. Palmer. She did not mind 


94 


what’s mine’s mine. 


much, and would not object. He would spend Christ- 
inas with them, he said, and bring down Christian, and 
perhaps Mr. Sercombe. 

The girls did not like the idea. It was so cold in the 
country in winter, and the snow would be so deep ! 
they would be starved to death ! But, of course — if 
the governor had made up his mind to be cruel ! 

The thing was settled. It was only for one winter ! 
It would be a new experience for them, and they would 
enjoy their next season all the more ! The governor 
had jiromised to send them down new furs, and a great 
boxful of novels! He did not apprize them that he 
meant to sell their horses. Their horses were his ! 
He was an indulgent father and did not stint them, but 
he was not going to ask their leave ! At the same time 
he had not the courage to tell them. 

lie took his wife with him as far as Inverness for a 
day or two, that she might lay in a good stock of every- 
thing antagonistic to cold. 

When father and mother were gone from the house, 
the girls felt larky. They had no wish to do anything 
that would not do if their parents were at home, but 
they had some sense of relief in the thought that they 
could do whatever they liked. A more sympathetic 
historian might say, and I am nowise inclined to con- 
tradict him, that it was only the reaction from the pain 
of parting, and the instinct to make the best of their 
loneliness. However it was, the elder girls resolved on 
a walk to the village, to see what might be seen, and in 
particular the young woman at the shop, of whom they 
had heard their brother and Mr. Sercombe speak with 
admiration, qualified with the remark that she was so 
proper they could hardly get a civil word out of her. 
She was in fact too scrupulously polite for their taste. 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 


95 


It was a bright, pleasant, frosty morning, perfectly 
still, with an air like wine. The harvest had vanished 
from the fields. The sun shone on millions of tiny dew- 
suns, threaded on forsaken spider-webs. A few small, 
white, frozen clouds flecked the sky. The purple 
heather was not yet gone, and not any snow had yet 
fallen in the valley. The burn was large, for there had 
been a good deal of rain, but it was not much darker 
than its usual brown of smoke-crystal. They tripped 
gayly along. If they had little spiritual, they had much 
innocent animal life, which no great disappointments or 
keen twinges of conscience had yet damped. They were 
but human kittens — and not of the finest breed. 

As they crossed the root of the spur, and looked 
down on the autumn fields to the east of it, they spied 
something going on which they did not understand. 
Stopping, and gazing more intently, they beheld what 
seemed a contest between man and beast, but its 
nature they could not yet distinguish. Gradually it 
grew plain that two of the cattle of the country, wild 
and shaggy, were rebelling against control. They were 
in fact two young bulls, of the small black highland 
breed, accustomed to gallop over the rough hills, jump- 
ing like goats, which Alister had set himself the task of 
breaking to the plough — by no means an easy one, or to 
be accomplished single-handed by any but a man of some 
strength, and both persistence and patience. In the 
summer he had lost a horse, which he could ill afford 
to replace: if he could make these bulls work, they 
would save him the price of the horse, would cost less 
to keep, and require less attention ! He bridled them 
by the nose, not with rings through the gristle, but with 
nose-bands of iron, bluntly spiked inside, against which 
they could not pull hard without pain, and though he 


96 


what’s mine’s mine. 


had made some progress could by no means trust them 
yet : every now and then a fit of mingled wildness and 
stubbornness would seize them, and the contest would 
appear about to begin again from the beginning ; but 
they seldom now held out very long. The nose-band of 
one of them had come off, Alister had him by a horn in 
each hand, and a fierce struggle was going on between 
them, while the other was pulling away from his com- 
panion as if determined to take to the hills. It was a 
good thing for them that share and coulter were pretty 
deep in the ground, so the help of their master ; for had 
they got away, they would have killed, or at least dis- 
abled themselves. Presently, however, he had the 
nose-band on, and by force and persuasion together got 
the better of them ; the staggy little furies gave in ; and 
quickly gathering up his reins, he went back to the 
plough-stilts, each hand holding at once a handle and a 
rein. With energetic obedience the little animals began 
to pull — so vigorously that it took nearly all the chief’s 
strength to hold at once his plough and his team. 

It was something of a sight to the girls after a long 
dearth of events. Many things indeed upon which they 
scarce cast an eye when they came, they were now 
capable of regarding with a little feeble interest. Nor, 
although ignorant of everything agricultural, were they 
quite unused to animals ; having horses they called their 
own, they would not unfrequently go to the stables to 
give their orders, or see that they were carried out. 

They waited for some time hoping the fight would 
begin again, and drew a little nearer ; then, as by com- 
mon consent, left the road, passed the ruin, ran down 
the steep side of the ridge, and began to toil through 
the stubble towards the ploughman. A sharp straw 
would every now and then go through a delicate stock- 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 


97 


ing, and the damp soil gathered in great lumps on their 
shoes, but they plodded on, laughing merrily as they 
went. 

The Macruadh was meditating the power of the 
frost to break up the clods of the field, when he saw 
the girls close to him. He pulled in his cattle, and 
taking off his bonnet with one hand while the other 
held both reins — 

“ Excuse me, ladies,” he said ; “ my animals are 
young, and not quite broken.” 

They were not a little surprised at such a reception, 
and were driven to conclude that the man must be the 
laird himself. They had heard that he cultivated his 
own land, but had not therefore imagined him laboring 
in his own person. 

In spite of the blindness produced by their conven- 
tional training, vulgarly called education, they could 
not fail to perceive something in the man worthy of 
their regard. Before them, on the alert towards his cat- 
tle, but full of courtesy, stood a dark, handsome, weather- 
browned man, with an eagle air, not so pronounced as 
his brother’s. His hair was long, and almost black, — 
in thick, soft curls over a small, well-set head. His 
glance had the flash that comes of victorious effort, and 
his free carriage was that of one whom labor has no- 
wise subdued, whose every muscle is instinct with 
ready life. True even in trifles, he wore the dark beard 
that nature had given him ; disordered by the struggle 
with his bulls, it imparted a certain wild look that con- 
trasted with his speech. Christina forgot that the man 
was a laborer like any other, and noted that he did not 
manifest the least embarrassment in their presence, or 
any consciousness of a superfluity of favor in their 
approach : she did not know that neither would his 


98 


what’s mine’s mine. 


hired servant, or the poorest member of his clan. It. 
was said of a certain Sutherland clan that they were 
all gentlemen, and of a certain Argyll clan that they 
were all poets ; of the Macruadhs it was said they were 
both. As to Mercy, the first glance of the chief’s hazel 
eyes, looking straight into hers with genial respect, 
went deeper than any look had yet penetrated. 

Ladies in Alister’s fields were not an every-day sight. 
Hardly before had his work been enlivened by such a 
presence; and the joy of it was in his eyes, though 
his behavior was calm. Christina thought how pleas- 
ant it would be to have him for a worshipping slave — 
so interpenetrated with her charms that, like Una’s lion, 
he would crouch at her feet, come and go at her pleas- 
ure, live on her smiles, and be sad when she gave him 
none. She would make a gentleman of him, then leave 
him to dream of her! It would be a pleasant and 
interesting task in the dullness of their winter’s banish- 
ment, with the days so short and the nights so unen- 
durably long ! The man was handsome ! — she would 
do it! — and would proceed at once to initiate his 
conquest ! 

The temptation to patronize not unfrequently pre- 
sents an object for the patronage superior to the would- 
be patron ; for the temptation is one to which slight 
persons chiefly are exposed ; it affords an outlet for the 
vague activity of self-importance. Few have learned 
that a man is of no value except to God and other 
men. Self would fain be worshipped instead of wor- 
shipping ; and such was the spirit in which Miss Pal- 
mer dreamed of a friendship de haut en has with the 
country fellow. 

She put on a smile— no difficult thing, for she was 
a good-natured girl. It looked to Alister quite natural. 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 


99 


It was nevertheless, like Hamlet’s false friends, “ sent 
for.” 

“Do you like ploughing?” she asked. 

Had she known the manners of the country, she 
would have added “ laird,” or “ Macruadh.” 

“Yes, I do,” Alister answered ; “ but I should plough 
all the same if I did not. It has to be done.” 

“ But why should you do it ? ” 

“ Because I must,” laughed the laird. 

What ought she to answer? Should she condole 
with the man because he had to work ? It did not seem 
prudent ! She would try another tack ! 

“You had some trouble with your oxen! We saw 
it from the road, and were quite frightened. I hope 
you are not hurt.” 

“There was no danger of that,” answered Alister 
with a smile. 

“ What wild creatures they are \ Isn’t it rather hard 
work for them ? They are so small ! ” 

“ They are as strong as horses,” answered the laird. 
“ I have had my work to break them ! Indeed, I can 
hardly say I have done it yet ! they would very much 
like to run their horns into me ! ” 

“ Then it must be dangerous ! It shows that they 
were not meant to work ! ” 

“ They were meant to work if I can make them 
work.” 

“ Then you approve of slavery ! ” said Mercy. 

She hardly knew what made her oppose him. As 
yet she had no opinions of her own, though she did 
catch a thought sometimes, when it happened to come 
within her reach. Alister smiled a curious smile. 

“ I should,” he said, “ if the right people were made 
slaves of. I would take shares in a company of Alge- 


100 


what’s mine’s mine. 


rine pirates to rid the world of certain types of the 
human ! ” 

They looked at each other. “ Sharp ! ” said Christina 
to herself. 

“ What sorts would you have them carry off ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Idle men in particular,” answered Alister. 

“ Would you not have them take idle ladies as well?” 

“ I would see first how they behaved when the men 
were gone.” 

u You believe, then,” said Mercy, “ we have a right 
to make the lower animals work ? ” 

u I think it is our duty,” answered Alister. “ At all 
events, if we do not, we must either kill them off by 
degrees, or cede them this world and emigrate. But 
even that would be a bad thing for my little bulls there ! 
It is not so many years since the last wolf was killed 
— here, close by! and if the dogs turned to wolves 
again, where would the domestic animals be ? They 
would then have wild beasts instead of men for their 
masters ! To have the world a habitable one, man 
must rule.” 

“ Men are nothing but tyrants to them ! ” said Chris- 
tina. 

“ Most are, I admit.” 

Ere he could prevent her, she had walked up to the 
near bull, and begun to pat him. He poked a sharp 
wicked horn sideways at her, catching her cloak on it, 
and grazing her arm. She started back very white. 
Alister gave him a terrible tug. The beast shook his 
head, and began to paw the earth. 

“ Don’t go near him,” he said. “ But you needn’t 
be afraid ; he can’t touch you. That iron band round 
his nose has spikes in it.” 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 


101 


“ Poor fellow ! ” said Christina ; “ it is no wonder 
he should be out of temper ! It must hurt him dread- 
fully!” 

“ It does hurt him when he pulls against it, but not 
when he is quiet.” 

“ I call it cruel ! ” 

“ I do not. The fellow knows what is wanted of him 
— just as well as any naughty child.” 

“ How can he when he has no reason ! ” 

“ Oh, hasn’t he ! ” 

“ Animals have no reason ; they have only instinct ! ” 

“ They have plenty of reason — more than many men 
and women. They are not so far off us as pride makes 
most people think ! It is only those that don’t know 
them that talk about the instinct of animals ! ” 

“ Do you know them ?” 

“ Pretty well for a man ; but they’re often too much 
for me.” 

“ Anyhow that poor thing does not know better.” 

“ He knows enough ; and if he did not would you 
allow him to do as he pleased because he didn’t know 
better ? lie wanted to put his horn into you a moment 
ago!” 

“ Still it must be hard to want very much to do a 
thing, and not be able to do it ! ” said Mercy. 

“ I used to feel as if I could tear my old nurse to 
pieces when she wouldn’t let me do as I wanted ! ” said 
Christina. 

“ I suppose you do whatever you please now, ladies ?” 

“ No, indeed. We wanted to go to London and here 
we are for the winter ! ” 

w And you think it hard ? ” 

“ Y es, we do.” 

“ And so, from sympathy, you side with my cattle ? ” 


102 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Well — yes!” 

“ You think 1 have no right to keep them captive, 
and make them work ? ” 

“ None at all,” said Christina. 

“ Then it is time I let them go ! ” Alister returned 
and made for the animals’ heads. 

“No, no ! please don’t! ” cried both the girls, turn- 
ing, the one white, the other red. 

“ Certainly not if you do not wish it ! ” said Alister, 
staying his step. “ If I did, however, you would be 
quite safe, for they would not come near me. They 
would be off up that hill as hard as they could tear, 
jumping everything that came in their way.” 

“ Is it not very dull here in the winter ? ” asked 
Christina, panting a little, but trying to look as if she 
had known quite well he was only joking. 

“ I do not find it dull.” 

“ Ah, but you are a man, and can do as you please ! ” 

“ I never could do as I pleased, and so I please as I 
do,” answered Alister. 

u I do not quite understand you.” 

“ When you cannot do as you like, the best thing is 
to like what you have to do. One’s own way is not to 
be had in this world. There’s a better, to be sure, 
which is to be had ! ” 

“ I have heard a parson talk like that,” said Mercy, 
“ but never a layman ! ” 

“My father was a parson, as good as any layman. 
He would have laid me on my back in a moment — 
here as I stand ! ” said Alister, drawing himself to his 
height. 

He broke suddenly into Gaelic, addressing the more 
troublesome of the bulls. No better pleased to stand still 
than to go on, he had fallen to digging at his neighbor, 


THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 


103 


who retorted with the horn convenient, and presently 
there was a great mixing of bull and harness and cloddy 
earth. Turning quickly towards them, Alister dropped 
a rein. In a moment the plough was out of the furrow, 
and the bulls were straining every muscle, each to send 
the other into the wilds of the unseen creation. Alister 
sprang to their heads, and taking them by their noses 
forced them back into the line of the furrow. Christina, 
thinking they had broken loose, fled ; but there was 
Mercy with the reins, hauling with all her might ! 

“ Thank you, thank you ! ” said the laird, laughing 
with pleasure. “ You are a friend indeed ! ” 

“ Mercy ! Mercy ! come away,” cried Christina. 

But Mercy did not heed her. The laird took the 
reins, and administering a blow each to the animals, 
made them stand still. 

There are tender-hearted people who virtually object 
to the whole scheme of creation ; they would neither 
have force used nor pain suffered ; they talk as if kind- 
ness could do everything, even where it is not felt. 
Millions of human beings but for suffering would never 
develop an atom of affection. The man who would spare 
due suffering is not wise. Because a thing is unpleas- 
ant, it is folly to conclude it ought not to be. There 
are powers to be born, creations to be perfected, sinners 
to be redeemed, through the ministry of pain, to be born, 
perfected, redeemed, in no other way. But Christina 
was neither wise nor unwise after such fashion. She 
was annoyed at finding the laird not easily to be brought 
to her feet, and Mercy already advanced to his good 
graces. She was not jealous of Mercy, for was she not 
beautiful and Mercy plain? but Mercy had by her pluck 
obtained an advantage, and the handsome ploughman 
looked at her admiringly! Partly therefore because she 


104 


what’s mine’s mine. 


was not pleased with him, partly that she thought a little 
out-cry would be telling, She cried out, 

“Oh, you wicked man! you are hurting the poor 
brutes ! ” 

“No more than is necessary,” he answered. 

“You are cruel ! ” 

“Good morning, ladies.” 

He just managed to take off his bonnet, for the four- 
legged explosions at the end of his plough were pulling 
madly. He slackened his reins, and away it went, like 
a sharp knife through a Dutch cheese. 

“You’ve made him quite cross! ” said Mercy. 

“ What a brute of a man ! ” said Christina. 

She never restrained herself from teasing cat or 
puppy, did not mind hurting it a little even, for her 
amusement. Those capable of distinguishing between the 
qualities of resembling actions are few. There are some 
who will regard Alister as capable of vivisection. 

On one occasion when the brothers were boys, Alister 
having lost his temper in the pursuit of a runaway 
pony, fell ujDon it with his fists the moment he caught 
it. Ian put himself between, and received, without 
word or motion, more than one blow meant for the 
pony. 

“ Donal was only in fun,” he said as soon as Alister’s 
anger had spent itself. “Father would never have 
punished him like that ! ” 

Alister was ashamed, and never again was guilty of 
such an outbreak. From that moment indeed, he began 
the serious endeavor to subjugate the pig, tiger, mule, 
or whatever animal he found in himself. There re- 
mained, however, this difference between them — that 
Alister punished without compunction, while Ian was 
sorely troubled at having to cause any suffering. 


CHAPTER XI. 


THE FIR-GROVE, 


S the ladies went up the ridge, regarded in the 



neighborhood as the chief’s pleasure-ground 
where nobody went except to call upon the chief, they 
must, having mounted it lower down than where they 
descended, pass the cottage. The grove of birch, 
mountain-ash, and fir, which surrounded it, was planted 
quite irregularly, and a narrow foot-path went winding 
through it to the door. Against one of the firs was a 
rough bench, turned to the west, and seated upon it 
they saw Ian, smoking a formless mass of much defiled 
sea-foam, otherwise meerschaum. He rose, uncovered, 
and sat down again. But Christina, who regarded it 
as a praiseworthy kindness to address any one beneath 
her, not only returned his salutation, but stopped, and 


said. 


“Good morning ! We have been learning how they 
plough in Scotland, but I fear we annoyed the plough- 
man.” 

“ Fergus does sometimes look surly,” said Ian, rising 
again, and going to her ; “ he has bad rheumatism, 
poor fellow ! And then he can’t speak a word of Eng- 
lish, and is ashamed of it ! ” 

“ The man we saw spoke English very well. Is Fer- 
gus your brother’s name ? ” 

“ No ; my brother’s name is Alister — that is Gaelic 
for Alexander.” 


105 


106 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ He was ploughing with two wild little oxen, and 
could hardly manage them.” 

“ Then it must have been Alister — only, excuse me, 
he could manage them perfectly. Alister could break 
a pair of buffaloes.” 

“ He seemed rather vexed, and I thought it might be 
that we made the creatures troublesome — I do not mean 
he was rude — only a little rough to us.” 

Ian smiled, and waited for more. 

“ He did not like to be told he was hard on the ani- 
mals. I only said the poor things did not know better ! ” 

“ Ah — I see ! — He understands animals so well, he 
doesn’t like to be meddled with in his management of 
them. If they didn’t know better, I daresay he told 
you he had to teach them better. They are trouble- 
some little wretches. Yes; I confess he is a little 
touchy about animals ! ” 

Somehow Christina felt herself rebuked, and did not 
like it. He had almost told her that, if she had quar- 
relled with his ploughman-brother, the fault must be 
hers ! 

“ But indeed, Captain Macruadh,” she said — for the 
people called him captain, “I am not ignorant about 
animals! We have horses of our own, and know all 
about them. — Don’t we, Mercy ? ” 

“Yes,” said Mercy; “they take apples and sugar 
from our hands.” 

“ And you would have the chief’s bulls tamed with 
apples and sugar ! ” said Ian, laughing. “ But the 
horses were tamed before ever you saw them ! If you 
had taken them wild, or even when they were foals, and 
taught them everything, then you would know a little 
about them. An acquaintance is not a friendship! 
My brother loves animals and understands them almost 


THE FIR-GROVE. 


107 


like human beings ; he understands them better than 
some human beings, for the most cunning of the ani- 
mals are yet simple. He knows what they are thinking 
when I cannot read a word of their faces. I remember 
one terrible night, winters ago — there had been a 
blinding drift on and off during the day — and my father 
and mother were getting anxious about him — how he 
came staggering in, and fell on the floor, and a great 
lump in his plaid on his back began to wallow about, 
and out crept his big colly ! They had been to the 
hills to look after a few sheep, and the poor dog was 
exhausted, and Alister carried him home at the risk of 
his life.” 

“ A valuable animal, I suppose ! ” said Christina. 

“ He had been, but was no more what the world calls 
valuable. He was an old dog almost past work — but 
the wisest creature ! Poor fellow, he never recovered 
that day on the hills ! A week or so after, we buried 
him — in the hope of a blessed resurrection,” added Ian, 
with a smile. 

The girls looked at each other as much as to say, 
“ Good heavens ! ” He caught the look, but said noth- 
ing, for he saw they had “ no understanding.” 

The brothers believed most devoutly that the God 
who is present at the death-bed of the sparrow does not 
forget the sparrow when he is dead ; for they had been 
taught that he is an unchanging God ; “ and,” argued 
Ian, “ what God remembers, he thinks of, and what he 
thinks of, 7s.” But Ian knew that what misses the heart 
falls under the feet. A man is bound to share his best, 
not to tumble his seed-pearls into the feeding-trough, to 
break the teeth of them that are there at meat. He 
had but lifted a corner to give them a glimpse of the 
Life eternal, and the girls thought him ridiculous ! The 


108 


what’s mine’s mine. 


human caterpillar that has not yet even began to sicken 
with the growth of her psyche-wings, is among the 
poorest of the human animals ! 

But Christina was not going to give in! Her one 
idea of the glory of life was the subjugation of men. 
As if moved by a sudden impulse, she went close up to 
him. 

“ Do not be angry with me,” she said, almost coax- 
ingly, but with a visible mingling of boldness and shy- 
ness, neither of them quite assumed ; for, though con- 
scious of her boldness, she was not frightened ; and 
there was something in the eagle-face that made it easy 
to look shy. “I did not mean to be rude. I am 
sorry.” 

“ You mistake me,” he said gently. “ I only wanted 
you to know you misjudged my brother.” 

“ Then, if you have forgiven me, you will let me sit 
for a few minutes ! I am so tired with walking in the 
sticky earth ! ” 

“Do, pray, sit down,” responded Ian heartily, and 
led the way to the bench. 

But she sank gracefully at the foot of the next fir, 
while Mercy sat down on the bench. 

“ Do go on with your pipe,” she said, looking up as 
she arranged her dress ; “I am quite used to smoke. 
Papa would smoke in church if he dared ! ” 

“ Chrissy ! You know he never smokes in the draw- 
ing-room ! ” cried Mercy, scandalized. 

“ I have seen him — when mamma was away.” 

Ian began to be a little more interested in the plain 
one. But what must his mother think to see them sit- 
ting there together ! He could not help it ! if ladies 
chose to sit down, it was not for him to forbid them ! 
And there was a glimmer of conscience in the younger ! 


THE FIR-GROVE. 


109 


Most men believe only what they find or imagine 
possible to themselves. They may be sure of this, that 
there are men so different from them that no judgment 
they pass upon them is worth a straw, simply because 
it does not apply to them. I assert of Ian that neither 
beauty nor intellect attracted him. Imagination would 
entice him, but the least lack of principle would arrest 
ils influence. The simplest manifestation of a live con- 
science would draw him more than anything else. I 
do not mean the conscience that proposes questions, but 
the conscience that loves right and turns from wrong. 

Notwithstanding the damsel’s invitation, he did not 
resume his pipe. He was simple, but not free and easy 
— too sensitive to the relations of life to be familiar 
upon invitation with any girl. If she was not one with 
whom to hold real converse, it was impossible to blow 
dandelions with her, and talk must confine itself to the 
commonplace. After gentlest assays to know what 
was possible, the result might be that he grew courte- 
ously playful, or drew back, and confined himself to 
the formal. 

In the conversation that followed, he soon found the 
younger capable of being interested, and having seen 
much in many parts of the world, had plenty to tell 
her. Christina smiled sweetly, taking everything with 
over-gentle politeness, but looking as if all that inter- 
ested her was, that there they were, talking about it. 
Provoked at last by her persistent lack of genuine re- 
ception, Ian was tempted to try her with something 
different : perhaps she might be moved to horror. Any 
feeling would be a find! He thought he would tel 
them an adventure he had read in a book of travels. 

In Persia, alone in a fine moonlight night, the trav- 
eller had fallen asleep on his horse, but awoke suddenly, 


110 


what’s mine’s mine. 


roused by something frightful, he did not know what. 
The evil odor all about him exjilained, however, his 
bewilderment and terror. Presently he was bumped 
on this side, then bumped on that ; first one knee, then 
the other, would be struck ; now the calf of one leg was 
caught, now the calf of the other ; then both would be 
caught at once, and he shoved nearly over his pommel. 
His horse was very uneasy, but could ill help himself in 
the midst of a moving mass of uncertain objects. The 
traveller for a moment imagined himself in a boat on 
the sea, with a huge quantity of wrecked cargo float- 
ing around him, whence came the frequent collisions he 
was undergoing ; but he soon perceived that the vague 
shapes were boxes, pannierwise on the backs of mules, 
moving in caravan along the desert. Of not a few the 
lids were broken, of some gone altogether, revealing 
their contents — the bodies of good Mussulmans, on 
their way to the consecrated soil of Mecca for burial. 
Carelessly shambled the mules along, stumbling as they 
jogged over the uneven ground, their boxes tilting from 
side to side, sorely shaken, some of them, in frustration 
of dying hopes, scattering their contents over the track 
— for here and there a mule carried but a wreck of his 
wooden panniers. On and on over the rough gravelly 
waste, under the dead cold moon, weltered the slow 
stream of death ! 

“You may be sure,” concluded Ian, “he made haste 
out of the ruck ! But it was with difficulty he got clear, 
happily to windward — then for an hour sat motionless 
on his horse, watching through the moonlight the long 
dark shadow flitting towards its far-off goal. When at 
length he could no longer descry it, he put his horse to 
his speed — but not to overtake it.” 

As he spoke, Mercy’s eyes grew larger and larger, 


THE FIR-GROVE. 


Ill 


never leaving his face. She had at least imagination 
enough for that ! Christina curled her pretty lip, and 
look disgusted. The one at a horrible tale was horri- 
fied : the other merely disgusted ! The one showed 
herself capable of some reception ; the other did not. 

“ Something might be done with that girl ! ” thought 
Ian. 

“ Did he see their faces ? ” drawled Christina. 

Mercy was silent, but her eyes remained fixed on him. 
It was Ian’s telling, more than the story, impressed her. 

“I don’t think he mentions them,” answered Ian. 
“ But shall I tell you,” he went on, “ what seems to me 
the most unpleasant thing about the business ? ” 

“Do,” said Christina. 

“ I think it must be for the poor ghosts to see such a 
disagreeable fuss made with their old clothes.” 

Christina smiled. 

“ Do you think ghosts see what goes on after they 
are dead?” asked Mercy. 

“ The ghosts are not dead,” said Ian, “ and I can’t 
tell. But I am inclined to think some ghosts have to 
stay a while and look on.” 

“ What would be the good of that ? ” returned Mercy. 

“ Perhaps to teach them the little good they were in 
it, or got out of it,” he answered. “ To have to stick 
to a thing after it is dead, is terrible, but may teach 
much.” 

“ I don’t understand you,” said Mercy. “ The world 
is not dead ! ” 

“Better and better!” Ian thought with himself. 
“ The girl can understand ! — A thing is always dead to 
you when you have done with it,” he answered her. 
“ Suppose you had a ball-dress crumpled and unsightly 
— the roses on it withered, and the tinsel shining hide- 


112 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ously through them — would not the dress be a dead 
dress?” 

“Yes, indeed.” 

“ Then suppose, for something you had done, or for 
something you would not stop being, you had to wear 
that ball-dress till something came about — you would 
be like the ghosts that cannot get away. — Suppose, 
when you were old and wrinkled, — ” 

“You are very amusing, Captain Macruadh!” said 
Christina, with a bell-like laugh. But Tan went on. 

“ Some stories tell us of ghosts with the same old 
wrinkled faces in which their bodies died. The world 
and its uses over, they are compelled to haunt it still, 
seeing how things go but taking no share in them, be- 
holding the relief their death is to all, feeling they have 
lost their chance of beauty, and are fixed in ugliness, 
having wasted being itself ! They are like a man in a 
miserable dream, in which he can do nothing, but in 
which he must stay, and go dreaming, dreaming on 
without hope of release. To be in a world and. have 
nothing to do with it must be awful ! A little more 
imagination would do some people good ! ” 

“No, please!— no more for me!” said Christina, 
laughing as she rose. 

Mercy was silent. Though she had never really 
thought about anything herself, she did not doubt that 
certain people were in earnest about something. She 
knew that she ought to be good, and she knew she was 
not good ; how to be good she did not know, for she 
had never set herself to be good. She sometimes 
wished she were good ; but there are thousands of wan- 
dering ghosts who would be good if they might without 
taking trouble : the kind of goodness they desire would 
not be worth a life to hold it. 


TIIE FIR-GROVE. 


113 


Fear is a wholesome element in the human economy ; 
they are merely silly who wquld banish it from all asso- 
ciation with religion. True, there is no religion in fear ; 
religion is love, and love casts out fear ; but until a man 
has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as 
there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than 
secure. 

The vague awe ready to assail every soul that has not 
found rest in its source, readier the more honest the 
soul, had for the first time laid hold of Mercy. The 
earnest face of the speaker had most to do with it. 
She had never heard anybody talk like that ! 

The lady of the house appeared, with kind dignity, 
asking if they would not take some refreshment : to a 
highlander hospitality is a law where not a passion. 
Christina declined the offer. 

“ Thanks ! we were only a little tired,” she said, “ and 
are quite rested now. How beautifully sheltered your 
house is ! ” 

“On the side of the sea, yes,” answered Mrs. 
Macruadh ; “ but not much on the east where we want 
it most. The trees are growing, however ! ” 

When the sisters were out of sight of the cottage — 

“Well!” remarked Christina, “he’s a nice young 
man, is he not? Exceedingly well bred! And what 
taste he has ! He knows how to amuse ladies ! ” 

Mercy did not answer. 

“I never heard anything so disgusting!” added 
Christina. 

“ But,” suggested Mercy, “ you like to read horrid 
stories, Chrissy! You said so only yesterday! And 
there was nothing in what he told us that oughtn’t to 
be spoken about.” 

“ What ! — not those hideous coffins — and the 


114 


what’s mine’s mine. 


bodies dropping out of them — all crawling no doubt ? ” 

“ That is your own, Chrjssy ! You know he did not 
go so far as that! If Colonel Webberly had told you 
the story, you would have called it charming — in fun, 
of course, I mean ! ” 

But Christina never liked the argumentum ad femi- 
nam. 

“I would not! You know I would not!” she ex- 
claimed. “ I do believe the girl has fallen in love with 
the horrid man ! Of the two, I declare, I like the 
ploughman better. I am sorry I happened to vex him ; 
he is a good stupid sort of fellow ! I can’t bear this 
man ! How horribly he fixed his eyes on you when he 
was talking that rubbish about the ball-dress ! ” 

“He was anxious to make himself understood. I 
know he made me think I must mind what I was 
about ! ” 

“Oh, nonsense! We didn’t come into this wilder- 
ness to be preached to by a lay John the Baptist! He 
is an ill-bred fellow ! ” 

She would not have said so much against him, had not 
Mercy taken his part. 

Mercy rarely contradicted her sister, but even this 
brief passage with a real man had roused the justice in 
her. 

“ I don’t agree with you, Chrissy,” she said. “ He 
seems to me very much of a gentleman ? ” 

She did not venture te say all she felt, not choosing 
to be at absolute variance with her sister, and the 
threatened quarrel blew over like a shower in spring. 

But some sort of impression remained from the words 
of Ian on the mind of Mercy, for, the next morning she 
read a chapter in the book of Genesis, and said a prayer 
her mother had taught her. 


CHAPTER XII. 


AMONG THE HILLS, 



HEN Mr and Mrs. Palmer reached Inverness, 


V V they found they could spend a few days there, 
one way and another, to good purpose, for they had 
friends to visit as well as shopping to do. Mr. Pal- 
mer’s affairs calling him to the south were not immedi- 
ately pressing, and their sojourn extended itself to a 
full week of eight days, during which the girls were 
under no rule but their own. Their parents regarded 
them as perfectly to be trusted, nor were the girls aware 
of any reason why they should not be so regarded. 

The window of Christina’s bedroom overlooked a 
part of the road between the New House and the old 
x castle ; and she could see from it all the ridge as far as 
the grove that concealed the cottage : if now they saw 
more of the young men their neighbors, and were led 
farther into the wilds, thickets, or pasturage of their 
acquaintance, I cannot say she had no hand in it. 

She was depressed by a keen sense of failure : the 
boor, as she called him, was much too thick-skinned for 
any society but that of his bulls ! and she had made no 
progress with the Valentine any more than with the 
Orson ; he was better pleased with her ugly sister than 
with her beautiful self ! 

She would have given neither of the men another 
thought, but that there was no one else with whom to 
do any of that huckster business called flirting, which 


115 


116 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


to her had just harm enough in it to make it interesting. 
Life without it would be a waste ! She was one of 
those who can imagine no beauty or enjoyment in 
a thing altogether right. She took it for granted that 
bad and beautiful were often one ; that all the pleasures 
of the world owed their delight to a touch, a wash, a 
tincture of the wicked in them. Such have in them- 
selves so many crooked lines that they fancy nature laid 
down on lines of crookedness. They think the obliquity 
the beauty of the campanile, the blurring the charm of 
the sketch. 

I tread on delicate ground — ground which, alas ! 
many girls tread boldly, scattering much feather-bloom 
from the wings of poor Psyche, gathering for her hoards 
of unlovely memories, and sowing the seed of many a 
wish that they had done differently. They cannot pass 
over such ground and escape having their nature more 
or less vulgarized. I do not speak of anything counted 
wicked, but of gambling with the precious and lovely 
things of the deepest human relation. If a girl with 
such an experience marry a man she loves — with what 
power of loving may be left such a one — will she not 
now and then remember something it would be joy to 
discover she had but dreamed ? will she be able always 
to forget certain cabinets in her brain which, “ it would 
not do ” to throw open to the husband who thinks her 
simple as well as innocent ? Honesty and truth, God’s 
essentials, are perhaps more lacking in ordinary inter- 
course between young men and women than anywhere 
else. Greed and selfishness are as busy there as in 
money-making and ambition. Thousands on both sides 
are constantly seeking more than their share — more 
also than they even intend to return value for. Thou- 
sands of girls have been made sad for life by the speeches 


AMONG THE HILLS. 


117 


of a man careful all the time to say nothing that 
amounted to a pledge ! I do not forget that many a 
woman who would otherwise have been worth little, has 
for her sorrow found such consolation that she has 
become rich before God; these words hold neverthe- 
less : “ It must needs be that offences come, but woe to 
that man by whom the offence cometh ! ” 

On a morning two days later, Christina called Mercy, 
rather imperiously, to get ready at once for their usual 
walk. She obeyed, and they set out. Christina declared 
she was perishing with cold, and they walked fast. By 
and by they saw on the road before them the two 
brothers walking slow ; one was reading, the other 
listening. When they came nearer they descried in 
Alister’s hand a manuscript volume ; Ian carried an old- 
fashioned fowling-piece. It was a hard frost, which was 
perhaps the cause of Alister’s leisure so early in the day. 

Hearing the light steps of the girls behind them, the 
men turned. The laird was the first to speak. The 
plough and the fierce bulls not there to bewilder their 
judgrrfent, the young women immediately discovered 
their preception in the matter of breeding to be less 
infallible than they had imagined it: no well-bred 
woman could for a moment doubt the man before 
them as a gentleman — though his carriage was more 
courteous and more natural than is often seen in a 
Mayfair drawing-room, and his English a little old-fash- 
ioned. Ian was at once more like and more unlike 
other people. His manner was equally courteous, but 
notably stiffer ; he was as much at his ease, but more 
reserved. To use a figure, he did not stej) out so far to 
meet them. They walked on together. 

“You are a little earlier than usual this morning, 
ladies ! ” remarked the chief. 


118 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“How do you know that, Mr. Macruadh !” rejoined 
Christina. 

“ I often see you pass — and till now always at the 
same hour.” 

“ And yet we have never met before ! ” 

“The busy and the” — he hesitated a moment — 
“unbusy seldom meet,” said the chief. 

“Why don’t you say the idle?” suggested Christina. 

“Because that would be rude.” 

“ Why would it be rude ? Most people, I suppose, 
are more idle than busy ! ” 

“ Idle is a word of blame ; I had no right to use it.” 

“ I should have taken you for one of those who 
always speak their minds.” 

“ I hope I do when it is required, and I have any to 
speak.” 

“You prefer judging with closed doors ! ” 

The chief was silent: he did not understand her. 
Did she want him to say he did not think them idle ? 
Or, if they were, that they were quite right? 

“ I think it hard,” resumed Christina, with a tone of 
injury, almost of suffering, in her voice, “ that we should 
be friendly and open with people, and they all the time 
thinking of us in a way it would be rude to tell us ! It 
is enough to make one vow never to speak to — to any- 
body again ! ” 

Alister turned and looked at her. What could she 
mean? 

“You can’t think it hard,” he said, “that people 
should not tell you what they think of you the moment 
they first see you ! ” 

“ They might at least tell us what they mean by call- 
ing us idle ! ” 

“ I said not busy” 


AMONG THE HILLS. 


119 


“ Is every body to blame that is idle ? ” persisted 
Christina. 

“ Perhaps my brother will answer you that question,” 
said Alister. 

“If my brother and I tell you honestly what we 
thought of you when first we saw you,” said Ian, “will 
you tell us honestly what you thought of us?” 

The girls cast an involuntary glance at each other, 
and when their eyes met, could not keep them from 
looking conscious. A twitching also at the corners of 
Mercy’s mouth, showed they had been saying more than 
they would care to be cross-questioned upon. 

“ Ah, you betray yourselves, ladies ! ” Ian said. “ It 
is all very well to challenge us, but you are not prepared 
to lead the way ! ” 

“ Girls are never allowed to lead ! ” said Christina. 
“The men are down on them the moment they dare!” 

“I am not that way inclined,” answered Ian. “If 
man or woman lead to anything, success will justify the 
leader. — I will propose another thing ! ” 

“What is it?” asked Christina. 

“ To agree that, when we are about to part, with no 
probability of meeting again in this world, we shall 
speak out plainly what we think of each other ! ” 

“ But that will be such a time ! ” said Christina. 

“ In a world that turns quite round every twenty- 
four hours, it may be a very short time ! ” 

“We shall be coming every summer, though I hope 
not to stay through another winter ! ” 

“ Changes come when they are least expected ! ” 

“We cannot know,” said Alister, “ that we shall 
never meet again ! ” 

“ There the probability will be enough.” 

“ But how can we come to a better — I mean a fairer 


120 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


opinion of each other, when we meet so seldom ? ” 
asked Mercy innocently. 

“ This is only the second time we have met, and al- 
ready we are not quite strangers ! ” said Christina. 

“ On the other hand,” said Alister, “ we have been 
within call for more than two months, and this is our 
second meeting ! ” 

“ Well, who has not called? ” said Christina. 

The young men were silent. They did not care to 
discuss the question as to which mother was to blame 
in the matter. They were now in the bottom of the 
valley, had left the road, and were going up the side of 
the burn, often in single file, Alister leading, and Ian 
bringing up the rear, for the valley was thickly strewn 
with lumps of gray rock, of all shapes and sizes. They 
seemed to have rolled down the hill on the other side of 
the burn, but there was no sign of their origin : the hill 
was covered with grass below, and with heather above. 
Such was the winding of the way among the stones — 
for path there was none — that again and again no one 
of them could see another. The girls felt the strange- 
ness of it, and began to experience, without knowing 
it, a little of the power of solitary places. 

After walking thus for some distance, they found 
their leader halted. 

“ Here we have to cross the bum,” he said, “ and go 
a long way up the other side.” 

“ You want to be rid of us ! ” said Christina. 

“By no means,” replied Alister. “We are delighted 
to have you with us. But we must not let you get 
tired before turning to go back.” 

“ If you really do not mind, we should like to go a 
good deal farther. I want to see round the turn there, 
where another hill comes from behind and closes up the 


AMONG THE HILLS. 


121 


view. We haven’t anybody to go with us, and have 
seen nothing of the country. The men won’t take us 
shooting ; and mamma is always so afraid we lose our- 
selves, or fall down a few precipices, or get into a bog, 
or be eaten by wild beasts ! ” 

“ If this frost last, we shall have time to show you 
something of it. I see you can walk ! ” 

“ We can walk well enough, and should so like to get 
to the top of a mountain ! ” 

“ For the crossing then ! ” said Alister, and turning 
to the burn, jumped and rejumped it, as if to let them 
see how to do it. 

The bed of the stream was at the spot narrowed by 
two rocks, so that, though there was little of it, the 
water went through with a roar, and a force to take a 
man off his legs. It was too wide for the ladies, and 
they stood eying it with dismay, fearing an end to 
their walk and the pleasant companionship. 

“ Do not be frightened, ladies,” said Alister ; “ it is 
not too wide for you.” 

“ You have the advantage of us in your dress ! ” said 
Christina. 

“ I will get you over quite safe,” returned the chief. 

Christina looked as if she could not trust herself to 
him. 

“ I will try,” said Mercy. 

“ Jump high,” answered Alister, as he sprang again 
to the other side, and held out his hand across the 
chasm 

“ I can neither jump high nor far ! ” said Mercy. 

“ Don’t be in a huiry. I will take you — no, not by 
the hand ; that might slip — but by the wrist. Do not 
think how far you can jump ; all you have to do is to 
jump. Only jump as high as you can.” 


122 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Mercy could not help feeling frightened — the water 
rushed so fast and loud below. 

“ Are you sure you can get me over ? ” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

“ Then I will jump.” 

She sprang, and Alister, with a strong pull on her 
arm, landed her easily. 

“ It is your turn now,” he said, addressing Christina. 

She was rather white, but tried to laugh. 

“I — I — I don’t think I can ! ” she said. 

“ It is really nothing,” persuaded the chief. 

“ I am sorry to be a coward, but I fear I was bom 
one.” 

“ Some feelings nobody can help,” said Ian, “ but no- 
body need give way to them. One of the bravest men 
I ever knew would always start aside if the meanest 
little cur in the street came barking at him ; and yet on 
one occasion, when the people were running in all direc- 
tions, he took a mad dog by the throat, and held him. 
Come, Alister ! you take her by one arm and I will take 
her by the other.” 

The chief sprang to her side, and the moment she 
felt the grasp of the two men, she had the needful 
courage. The three jumped together, and were pres- 
ently walking merrily along the other bank, over the 
same kind of ground, and in the same order — Ian 
bringing up the rear. 

The ladies were startled by a gun going off close 
behind them. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said Ian, “ but I could not let 
the rascal go.” 

“ What have you killed?” asked his brother. 

“ Only one of my own family — a red-haired fellow ! ” 
answered Ian, leaving the path, and going up the hill. 


AMONG THE HILLS. 


123 


The girls looked, but saw nothing, and following him 
a few yards, came to him behind a stone. 

“ Goodness gracious ! ” exclaimed Christina, with 
horror in her tone, “ it’s a fox ! — Is it possible you have 
shot a fox ? ” 

The men laughed. 

“ And why not ? ” asked Alister, as if he had no idea 
what she could mean. “ Is the fox a sacred animal in 
the south ? ” 

u It’s worse than poaching ! ” she cried. 

“ Hardly ! ” returned Alister. “No doubt you may 
get a good deal of fun out of Reynard, but you can’t 
make game of him ! Why — you look as if you had 
lost a friend ! I admire his intellect, but we can’t 
afford to feed it on chickens and lambs.” 

“ But to shoot him ! ” 

“Why not? We do not respect him here. He is a 
rascal, to be sure, but then he has no money, and con- 
sequently no friends ! ” 

“ lie has many friends ! What would Christian or 
Mr. Sercombe say to shooting, actually shooting a fox ! ” 

“You treat him as if he were red gold! ” said the 
chief. “We build temples neither to Reynard nor 
Mammon here. In the south they seem to worship 
both ! ” 

“ Oh, no, they don’t ! ” said Mercy. “ That is only 
what poor people say ! ” 

« Do they not respect the rich man because he is rich, 
and look down on the poor man because he is poor ? ” 
said Ian. “ Though the rich man be a wretch, they 
think him grand; though the poor man be like Jesus 
Christ, they pity him ! ” 

“ And shouldn’t the poor be pitied ? ” said Christina. 

“Not except they need pity.” 


124 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Is it not pitiable to be poor ? ” 

“ By no means. It is pitiable to be wretched — and 
that, I venture to suspect, the rich are oftener than the 
poor. — But as to master Beynard there — instead of 
shooting him, what would you have had us do with 
him?” 

“ Hunt him, to be sure.” 

“ W ould he like that better ? ” 

“What he would like is not the question. The sport 
is the thing.” 

“ That will show you why he is not sacred here : we 
do not hunt him. It would be impossible to hunt this 
country ; you could not ride the ground. Besides, there 
are such multitudes of holes, the hounds would scarcely 
have a chance. No ; the only dog to send after the 
fellow is a leaden one.” 

“ There’s another ! ” exclaimed the chief — “ there ! 
sneaking away ! — and your gun not loaded, Ian ! ” 

“ I’m so glad ! ” said Christina. “ He at least will 
escape you ! ” 

“ And some poor lamb in the spring won’t escape 
him ! ” returned Alister. 

“ Lambs are meant to be eaten ! ” said Christina. 

“Yes; but a lamb might think it hard to feed such 
a creature ! ” 

“ If the fox is of no good in the world,” said Mercy, 
“why was he made?” 

“ He can’t be of no good,” answered the chief. 
“ What if some things are, just that we may get rid of 
them ? ” 

“ Could they be made just to be got rid of?” 

“ I said — that we might get rid of them : there is 
all the difference in that. The very first thing men had 
to do in the world was to fight beasts.” 


AMONG THE HILLS. 


125 


“ 1 think I see what you mean,” said Mercy : “ if 
there had been no wild beasts to fight with, men would 
never have grown able for much ! ” 

“ That is it,” said Alister. “ They were awful beasts ! 
and they had poor weapons to fight them with — neither 
guns nor knives ! ” 

“And who knows,” suggested Ian, “what good it 
may be to the fox himself to make the best of a greedy 
life ? ” 

“ But what is the good to us of talking about such 
things ? ” said Christina. “ They’re not. interesting ! ” 

The remark silenced the brothers : where indeed 
could be use without interest ? 

But Mercy, though she could hardly have said she 
found the conversation very interesting, felt there was 
something in the men that cared to talk about such 
things, that must be interesting if she could only get at 
it. They were not like any other men she had met ! 

Christina’s whole interest in men was the admiration 
she looked for and was sure of receiving from them ; 
Mercy had hitherto found their company stupid. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE LAKE. 


ILENCE lasted until they reached the shoulder of 



k_) the hill that closed the view up the valley. As 
they rounded it, the sun went behind a cloud, and a 
chill wind, as if from a land where dwelt no life, met 
them. The hills stood back, and they were on the 
shore of a small lake, out of which ran the burn. They 
were very desolate-looking hills, with little heather, and 
that bloomless, to hide their hard gray bones. Their 
heads were mostly white with frost and snow; their 
shapes had little beauty ; they looked worn and hope- 
less, ugly and sad — and so cold ! The water below 
was slaty gray, in response to the gray sky above ; 
there seemed no life in either. The hearts of the girls 
sank within them, and all at once they felt tired. In 
the air was just one sign of life: high above the lake 
wheeled a large fish-hawk. 

“ Look ! ” said Alister pointing ; “ there is the os- 
prey that lives here with his wife ! He is just going to 
catch a fish ! ” 

He had hardly spoken when the bird shot into the 
water, making it foam up all about. He reappeared 
with a fish in his claws, and flew off to find his mate. 

“ Do you know the very bird ? ” asked Mercy. 

“ I know him well. He and his wife have built on 
that conical rock you see there in the middle of the 
water many years.” 


126 


THE LAKE. 


127 


“Why have you never shot him? lie would look 
well stuffed ! ” said Christina. 

She little knew the effect of her words ; the chief re- 
strained his. He hated causeless killing ; and to hear a 
lady talk of shooting a high-soaring creature of the air 
as coolly as of putting on h£r gloves, was nauseous 
to him. Ian gave him praise afterwards for his unusual 
self-restraint. But it was a moment or two ere he had 
himself in hand. 

“Do you not think he looks much better going about 
God’s business ? ” he said. 

“ Perhaps ; but he is not yours ; you have not got 
him ! ” 

“ Why should I have him ? He seems, indeed, the 
more mine the higher he goes. A dead stuffed thing — 
how could that be mine at all? Alive, he seems to soar 
in the very heaven of my soul ! ” 

“You showed the fox no such pity!” remarked 
Mercy. 

“ At least I did not kill the fox to have him ! ” an- 
swered Alister. “ The osprey does no harm. He eats 
only fish, and they are very plentiful ; he never kills 
birds or hares, or any creature on the land. I do not 
see how anyone could wish to kill the bird, except from 
mere love of destruction ! Why should I make a life 
less in the world ? ” 

“ There would be more lives of fish — would there 
not?” said Mercy. “I don’t want you to shoot the 
poor bird ; I only want to hear your argument ! ” 

The chief could not immediately reply. Ian came to 
his rescue. 

“ There are qualities in life,” he said. “ One cannot 
think the fish-life so fine, so full of delight as the bird- 
life!” 


128 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“No. But,” said Mercy, “have the fishes not as 
good a right to their life as the birds ? ” 

“ Both have the right given them by the maker of 
them. The osprey was made to eat the fish, and the 
fish, I hope, get some good of being eaten by the osprey.” 

“ Excuse me, Captain*Macruadh, but that seems to 
me simple nonsense ! ” said Christina. 

“ I hope it is true.” 

“ I don’t know about being true, but it must be non- 
sense.” 

“ It must seem so to most people.” 

“ Then why do you say it ? ” 

“ Because I hope it is true.” 

“ Why should you wish nonsense to be true ? ” 

“What is true cannot be nonsense. It looks non- 
sense only to those that take no interest in the matter. 
Would it be nonsense to the fishes? ” 

“It does seem hard,” said Mercy, “that the poor 
harmless things should be gobbled up by a creature 
pouncing down upon them from another element ! ” 

“ As the poor are gobbled up everywhere by the rich ! ” 

“ I don’t believe that. The rich are very kind to the 
poor.” 

“ I beg you pardon,” said Ian, “ but if you know no 
more about the rich than you do about the fish, I can 
hardly take your testimony. ' The fish are the most car- 
nivorous creatures in the world.” 

“ Do they eat each other ? ” 

“ Hardly that. Only the cats of Kilkenny can do 
that.” 

“ I used a common phrase ! ” 

“ You did, and I am rude : the phrase must bear the 
blame for both of us. But the fish are ‘even canni- 
bals — eating the young of their own species ! They 


THE LAKE. 


129 


are the most destructive of creatures to other lives.” 

“ I suppose,” said Mercy, “ to make one kind of 
creature live on another kind, is the way to get the 
greatest good for the greatest number ! ” 

“ That doctrine, which seems to content most people, 
appears to me a poverty-stricken and selfish one. 1 can 
admit nothing but the greatest good to every individual 
creature.” 

“ Don’t you think we had better be going, Mercy ? 
It has got quite cold ; I am afraid it will rain,” said 
Christina, drawing her cloak round her with a little 
shiver. 

“ I am ready,” answered Mercy. 

The brothers looked at each other. They had come 
out to spend the day together, but they could not leave 
the ladies to go home alone ; having brought them 
across the burn, they were bound to see them over it 
again ! An imperceptible sign passed between them, 
and Alister turned to the girls. 

“ Come then,” he said ; “ we will go back ! ” 

“ But you were not going home yet ? ” said Mercy. 

“ Would you have us leave you in this wild place ! ” 
“ We shall find our way well enough. The burn will 
guide us.” 

“Yes; but it will not jump over you; it will leave 
you to jump over it ! ” 

“ I forgot the burn ! ” said Christina. 

“ Which way were you going ? ” asked Mercy, look- 
ing all around for road or pathway over the encircling 
upheaved wildernesses. 

“ This way,” answered Ian. “ Good-by ! ” 

“ Then you are not coming ? ” 

“ No. My brother will take care of you.” 

He went straight as an arrow up the hill. They 


130 


what’s mine’s mine. 


stood and watched him go. At what seemed the top, 
he turned, and waved his cap, then vanished. 

Christina felt disappointed. She did not much care 
for either of the very peculiar young men, but any 
company was better than none ; a man was better than 
a woman ; and two men were better than one ! If 
these were not equal to admiring her as she deserved, 
what more remunerative labor than teaching them to 
do so? 

The thing that chiefly disappointed her in them was, 
that they had so little small talk. It was so stupid to 
be always speaking sense ! always polite ! always cour- 
teous ! — “ Two sir Charles Grandisons,” she said, “ are 
two too many ! ” And indeed the History of Sir 
Charles Grandison had its place in the small library free 
to them from childhood ; but Christina knew nothing 
of him except by hearsay. 

The young men had been brought up in a solemn 
school — had learned to take life as a serious and lovely 
and imperative thing. Not the less, upon occasions of 
merry-making, would they frolic like young colts even 
yet, and that without the least reaction or sense of folly 
afterwards. At the same time, although in the village, 
Ian from childhood had the character, especially in the 
workshops of the carpenter, weaver, and shoemaker, of 
being full of humor, he was in himself always rather 
sad, being perplexed with many things : his humor was 
but the foam of his troubled sea. 

Christina was annoyed besides that Mercy seemed 
not indifferent to the opinion of the men. It was from 
pure inexperience of the man-world, she said to herself, 
that the silly child could see anything interesting in 
them ! Gentlemen she must allow them — but of such 
an old-fashioned type as to be gentlemen but by cour- 


THE LAKE. 


131 


tesy — not gentlemen in the world’s count ! She was 
of the world : they of the north of Scotland ! All day 
Mercy had been on their side and against her ! It 
might be from sheer perversity, but she had never been 
like that before ! She must take care she did not make 
a fool of herself ! It might end in some unhappiness to 
the young goose ! Assuredly neither father nor mother 
would countenance the thing ! She must throw herself 
into the breach ! Which was she taking a fancy to ? 

She was not so anxious about her sister, however, as 
piqued that she had not herself gathered one expression 
of homage, surprised one look of admiration, seen one 
sign of incipient worship in either. Of the two she 
liked better the ploughman ! The other was more a 
man of the world — but he was not of her world ! 
With him she was a stranger in a very strange land ! 

Christina’s world was a very smdll one, and in its 
temple her own image stood. Ian belonged to the uni- 
verse. He was a gentleman of the high court. Where- 
ever he might go throughout God’s worlds, he would 
be at home. How could there be much attraction be- 
tween Christina and him? 

Alister was more talkative on the way back than he 
had been all day. Christina thought the change caused 
by having them, or rather her, to himself alone ; but in 
reality it sprang from the prospect of soon rejoining his 
brother without them. Some of the things he said, 
Mercy found well worth hearing ; and an old Scotch 
ballad which he repeated, having learned it of a low- 
land nurse, appeared to her as beautiful as it was wild 
and strange. For Christina, she despised the Scotch 
language: it was vulgar! Had Alister informed her 
that Beowulf, “ the most important of all the relics of 
the Pagan Anglo-Saxon, is written in undeniable Scotch, 


132 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the English of the period,” it would have made no dif- 
ference to Christina ! Why should it ? She had never 
yet cared for any book beyond the novels of a certain 
lady which, to speak with due restraint, do not tend to 
profitable thought. At the same time, it was not for 
the worst in them that she liked them ; she did not un- 
derstand them well enough to see it. But there was 
ground to fear that, when she came to understand, 
shocked at first, she would speedily get accustomed to 
it, and at length like them all the better for it. 

In Mercy’s unawakened soul, echoed now and then a 
faint thrill of response to some of the things Alister 
said, and, oftener, to some of the verses he repeated, 
and she would look up at him when he was silent, with 
an unconscious seeking glance, as if dimly aware of a 
beneficent presence. Alister was drawn by the honest 
gaze of her yet undeveloped and homely countenance, 
with its child-look in process of sublimation, whence 
the woman would glance out and vanish again, leaving 
the child to give disappointing answers. There was 
something in it of the look a dog casts up out of his 
bhautiful brown eyes into the mystery of his master’s 
countenance. She was on the edge of coming awake 
all was darkness about her, but something was pulling 
at her ! She had never known before that a lady might 
be lovely in a ballad as well as in a beautiful gown ! 

Finding himself so listened to, though the listener 
was little more than a child, the heart of the chief 
began to swell in his great bosom. Like a child he was 
pleased. The gray day about him grew sweet ; its very 
grayness was sweet, and of a silvery sheen. When they 
arrived at the burn, and, easily enough from that side, 
he had handed them across, he was not quite so glad to 
turn from them as he had expected to be. 


THE LAKE. 


133 


“ Are you going ? ” said Christina with genuine sur 
prise, for she had not understood his intention. 

“ The way is easy now,” he answered. “ I am sorry 
to leave you, but I have to join Ian, and the twilight 
will be flickering down before I reach the place. ” 

“ And there will be no moon ! ” said Mercy : “ how 
will you get home through the darkness ! ” 

“We do not mean to come home to-night.” 

“ Oh, then, you are going to friends ! ” 

“No ; we shall be with each other — not a soul be- 
sides.” 

“ There can’t surely be a hotel up there ? ” 

Alister laughed, as he answered : 

“ There are more ways than one of spending a night 
on the hills. If you look from a window — in that di- 
rection,” he said, pointing, “ the last thing before you 
go to bed, you will see that at least we shall not perish 
with cold.” 

He sprang again over the burn, and with a wave of 
his bonnet, went, like Ian, straight up the hill. 

The girls stood for some time watching him climb as 
if he had been going up a flight of stairs, until he stood 
clear against the sky, when, with another wave of his 
bonnet, he too disappeared. 

Mercy did not forget to look from her window in the 
direction Alister had indicated. There was no room 
to mistake what he meant, for through the dark ran a 
great opening to the side of a hill somewhere in the 
night, where glowed and flamed, reddening the air, a 
huge crescent of fire, slowly climbing, like a column of 
attack, up towards the invisible crest. 

“ What does it mean ? ” she said to herself. “ Why 
do they make such a bonfire — with nobody but them- 
selves to enjoy it? What strange men — out by them- 


134 


what’s mine’s mine. 


selves in the dark night, on the cold hill ! What can 
they be doing it for ? I hope they have something to 
eat ! I should like to hear them talk ! I wonder what 
they are saying about us! I am certain we bored 
them ! ” 

The brothers did speak of them, and readily agreed 
in some notion of their characters ; but they soon 
turned to other things, — and there passed a good deal 
that Mercy could not have followed. What would she, 
for instance, have made of Alister’s challenge to his 
brother to explain the metaphysical necessity for the 
sine, tangent, and secant of an angle belonging to its 
supplement as well? 

When the ladies overtook them in the morning, 
Alister was reading from an old manuscript volume of 
his brother’s, which he had found in a chest — a certain 
very early attempt at humor, and now they disputed 
concerning it as they watched the fire. It had abun- 
dance of faults, and in especial lacked suture, but will 
serve to show something of Ian’s youthful ingenium. 

TO A VAGRANT. 

Gentle vagrant, stumping over 
Several verdant fields of clover ! 

Subject of unnumbered knockings, 

Tattered coat and ragged stockings, 

Slouching hat and roving eye, 

Tell of settled vagrancy 1 
Wretched wanderer, can it be 
The poor laws have leaguered thee ? 

Hear’st thou, in thy thorny den, 

Tramp of rural policemen, 

Only fancying, in thy rear 
Coats of blue and buttons clear, 

While to meet thee, in the van 
Stalks some vengeful alderman ? — 

Each separate sense bringing a notion 


THE LAKE. 


135 


Of forms that teach thee locomotion ! 

Beat and battered altogether, 

By fellow-men, by wind and weather ; 
Hounded on through fens and bogs, 
Chased by men and bit by dogs : 

And, in thy weakly way of judging, 

So kindly taught the art of trudging ; 

Or, with a moment’s happier lot, 

Pitied, pensioned, and forgot — 

Cutty-pipe thy regiutn donum ; 

Poverty thy summum bonum ; 

Thy frigid couch a sandstone stratum ; 

A colder grave thy ultimatum ; 
Circumventing, circumvented ; 

In short, excessively tormented, 
Everything combines to scare 
Charity’s dear pensioner ! 

— Say, vagrant, can’st thou grant to me 
A slice of thy philosophy ? 

Haply, in thy many trudgings, 

Having found unchallenged lodgings, 

Thy thoughts, unused to saddle-crupper, 
Ambling no farther than thy supper — 
Thou, by the light of heaven-lit taper, 
Mendest thy prospective paper ! 

Then, jolly pauper, stitch till day ; 

Let not thy roses drop away, 

Lest, begrimed with muddy matter, 

Thy body peep from eveiy tatter, 

And men — a charitable dose — 

Should physic thee with food and clothes ! 

Nursling of adversity ! 

’Tis thy glory thus to be 
Sinking fund of raggery ! 

Thus to scrape a nation’s dishes, 

And fatten on a few good wishes ! 

Or, on some venial treason bent, 

Frame thyself a government, 

For thy crest a brimless hat, 

Poverty’s aristocrat ! 

Nonne h abeam te tristem , 

Planet of the human system ? 

Comet lank and melancholic 

— Or bit shocking parabolic — 


136 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Seen for a little in the sky 
Of the world of sympathy — 

Seldom failing when predicted, 

Coming most when most restricted, 

Dragging a nebulous tail with thee 
Of hypothetic vagrancy — 

Of vagrants large, and vagrants small. 

Vagrants scarce visible at all 1 
Matchless oracle of woe ! 

Anarchy in embryo ! 

Strange antipodes of bliss ! 

Parody on happiness ! 

Raghouse of the great creation ! 

Subject meet for strangulation, 

By practice tutored to condense 
The cautious inquiry for pence, 

And skilful, with averted eye, 

To hide thy latent roguery — 

Lo, on thy hopes I clap a stopper ! 

Vagrant, thou shalt have no copper ! 

Gather thy stumps, and get thee hence, 

Unwise solicitor of pence I 

Alister, who all but worshipped Ian, and cherished 
every scrap from his pen, had not until quite lately 
seen this foolish jiroduction, as Ian counted it, and was 
delighted with it, as He would have been had it been 
much worse. Ian was vexed that he should like it, and 
now spent the greater part of an hour trying to show 
him how very bad in parts, even senseless it was. Pro- 
fusion of epithets without applicability, want of conti- 
nuity, purposelessness, silliness, heartlessness — were but 
a few of his denunciations. Alister argued it was but a bit 
of fun, and that anybody that knew Ian knew perfectly 
he would never amuse himself with a fellow without 
giving him something, but it was in vain ; Ian was bent 
on showing it altogether unworthy. So, not to waste 
the night, they dropped the dispute, and by the light 
of the blazing heather, turned to a chapter of Boethius. 


CHARTER XIV. 


THE WOLVES. 

M Y readers may remember that Ian was on the 
point of acquainting his mother with an impor- 
tant event in his spiritual history, when they were in- 
terrupted by the involuntary call of the girls from the 
New House. The mother, as will readily be believed, 
remained desirous of listening to her son’s story, though 
dreading it would not be of a kind to give her much 
satisfaction ; but partly from preventions — favored, it 
must be confessed, by Ian, and yet more from direct 
avoidance on his part, the days passed without her hear- 
ing anything more of it. Ian had in truth almost re- 
pented his offer of the narrative : a certain vague as- 
surance that it would not be satisfactory to her, had 
grown upon him until he felt it unkind to lay before 
her an experience whose narration would, seem to ask 
a sympathy she could not give. But the mother was 
unable to let the thing rest. More than by interest she 
was urged by anxiety. In spite of her ungodlike theo- 
ries of God, it was impossible she could be in despair 
about her noble Ian ; still, her hope was at best founded 
on the uncovenanted mercies of God, not on the se- 
curity of his bond ! She did not believe that God was 
doing and would do his best for every man ; therefore 
she had no assurance that he would bring down the 
pride of Ian, and compel his acceptance of terms worthy 
of an old Roman father, half law-circumventing lawyer, 
137 


138 


what’s mine’s mine. 


half heartless tyrant. But her longing to hear what 
her son had proposed telling her, was chiefly inspired 
by the hope of getting nearer to him, of closer sympathy 
becoming possible between them through her learning 
more clearly what his views were. She constantly felt 
as if walking along the side of a thick hedge, with oc- 
casional thinnesses through which now and then she 
gained a ghostly glimpse of her heart’s treasure gliding 
along the other side — close to her, yet so far that, when 
they spoke, they seemed calling across a gulf of divid- 
ing darkness. Therefore, the night after that spent by 
her sons on the hill, all having retired some two hours 
before, the mother, finding herself unable to sleep, rose 
as she had often done ere now, and stole to the door 
of the little room under the thatch where Ian lay. 
Listening, and judging him awake, she went softly in, 
and sat down by his bedside. 

There had been such occasions on which, though son 
as well as mother was wide awake, neither spoke a 
word ; but this time the mother could not be silent. 

“ You never told me, Ian, the story you began about 
something that made you pray ! ” 

Ian saw he could not now draw back without caus- 
ing her more trouble than would the narration. 

“ Are you sure you will not take cold, mother dear ? ” 
he said. 

“ I am warmly clad, my son ; and my heart, more 
than I can toll you, is longing to hear all about it.” 

“ I am afraid you will not find my story so interesting 
as you expect, mother ! ” 

“ What concerns you is more interesting to me than 
anything else in the whole world, Ian.” 

“Not more than God, mother?” said Ian. 

The mother was silent. She was as honest as her 


THE WOLVES. 


139 


sons. The question, dim-lucent, showed her, if but in 
shadow, something of the truth concerning herself — 
not so that she could grasp it, for she saw it as in a 
glimmer, a fluctuating, vanishing flash — namely, that 
she cared more about salvation than about God — that, 
if she could but keep her boy out of hell, she would be 
content to live on without any nearer approach to him 
in whom she had her being ! God was to her an awe, 
not a ceaseless, growing delight ! 

There are centuries of paganism *yet in many lovely 
Christian souls — paganism so deep, therefore so little 
recognized, that their earnest endeavor is to plant that 
paganism ineradicably in the hearts of those dearest to 
them. 

As she did not answer, Ian was afraid she was hurt, 
and thought it better to begin his story at once. 

“ It was one night in the middle of winter — last 
winter, near Moscow,” he began, “ and the frost was 
very bitter — the worst night for cold I have ever known. 
I had gone with a companion into the depth of a great 
pine forest. On our way, the cold grew so intense, that 
we took refuge at a little public-house, frequented by 
peasants and persons of the lowest ranks. On entering 
I saw a scene which surpassed all for interest I had ever 
before witnessed. The little lonely house was crammed 
with Russian soldiers, fierce-looking fellows, and I dare- 
say their number formed our protection from violence. 
Many of them were among the finest-looking fellows I 
have ever seen. They were half drunk, and were 
dancing and singing with the wildest gesticulations and 
grimaces; but such singing for strange wildness and 
harmony combined I have never before listened to. 
One would keep up a solo for some minutes, when the 
whole company would join in a sort of chorus, dancing 


140 


what’s mine’s mine. 


frantically about, but with the most perfect regularity 
of movement. One of them came up to me and with a 
low bow begged me in the name of the rest to give 
them some money. I accordingly gave them a silver 
ruble, upon which the whole party set up a shout, sur- 
rounded me, and in a moment a score of brawny fellows 
had lifted me in the air, where I was borne along in 
* triumph. I took off my cap and gave three hip-hip- 
hurrahs as loud as my lungs could bawl, whereupon, 
with the profoundest expressions of gratitude, I was 
lowered from my elevation. One of them then who 
seemed to be the spokesman of the rest, seized me in 
his arms and gave me a hearty kiss on the cheek, on 
which I took my departure amid universal acclamation. 
— But all that’s not worth telling you about ; it was 
not for that I began — only the scene came up so clear 
before me that it drew me aside.” 

“ I don’t need to tell you, Ian,” said his mother, “ that 
if it were only what you had to eat on the most ordinary 
day of your life, it would be interesting to me ! ” 

“ Thank you, mother dear ; I seem to know that 
without being told ; but I could never talk to you 
about anything that was not interesting to myself.” 

Here he paused. He would rather have stopped. 

“ Go on, go on, Ian. I am longing to hear.” 

“Well — : where was I? — We left at the inn our 
carriage and horses, and went with our guns far into 
the forest — all of straight, tall pines, up and up ; and 
the little island-like tops of them, which, if there be a 
breath of wind, are sure to be swaying about like the 
motion of a dream, were as still as the big frosty stars 
in the deep blue overhead.” 

“ What did you want in such a lonely place at that 
time of the night ? ” asked the mother. 


THE WOLVES. 


141 


She sat with firm-closed lips, and wide, night-filled 
eyes looking at her son, the fear of love in her beautiful 
face — a face more beautiful than any other that son 
had yet seen, fit window for a heart so full of refuge to 
look out of ; and he knew how she looked though the 
darkness was between them. 

“Wolves, mother,” he answered. 

She shuddered. She was a great reader in the long 
winter nights, and had read terrible stories of wolves 
— the last of which in Scotland had been killed not far 
from where they sat. 

“ What did you want with the wolves, Ian ? ” she 
faltered. 

“ To kill them, mother. I never liked killing animals 
any more than Alister; but even he destroys the 
hooded crow ; and wolves are yet fairer game. They 
are the out-of-door devils of that country, and I fancy 
devils do go into them sometimes, as they did once into 
the poor swine : they are the terror of all who live near 
the forests. 

“ There was no moon — only starlight ; but whenever 
we came to any opener space, there was light enough 
from the snow to see all about ; there was light indeed 
from the snow all through the forest, but the trees were 
thick and dark. Far away, somewhere in the mystery 
of the black wood, we could now and then hear a faint 
howling : it came from the red throats of the wolves.” 

“ You are frightening me, Ian ! ” said the mother, as 
if they had been two children telling each other tales. 

“ Indeed, mother, they are very horrible when they 
hunt in droves, ravenous with hunger. To kill one of 
them, if it be but one, is to do something for your kind. 
And just at that time I was oppressed with the feeling 
that I had done and was doing nothing for my people 


142 


what’s mine’s mine. 


— my own humans ; and not knowing anything else I 
could at the moment attempt, I resolved to go and kill 
a wolf or two. They had killed a poor woman only 
two nights before. 

“ As soon as we could after hearing the noise of them, 
we got up into two trees. It took us some time to dis- 
cover two that were fit for our purpose, and we did not 
get them so near each other as we should have liked. 
It was rather anxious work too until we found them, 
for if we encountered on foot a pack of those demons, 
we could but be a moment or two alive : killing one, 
ten would be upon us, and a hundred more on the backs 
of those. But we hoped they would smell us up in the 
trees, and search for us, when we should be able to give 
account of a few of them at least : we had double-bar- 
reled guns, and plenty of powder and ball.” 

“ But how could you endure the cold — at night — 
and without food ? ” 

“No, mother ; we did not try that i We had jdenty 
to eat in our pockets. My companion had a bottle of 
vodki, and — ” 

“ What is that ? ” asked the mother with suspicion. 

“A sort of raw spirit — horrible stuff — more like 
spirits of wine. They say it does not hurt in such 
cold.” 

“ But, Ian ! ” cried the mother, and seemed unable 
to say more. 

“ Don’t be frightened, mother ! ” said Ian, with a 
merry laugh. “Surely you do not imagine I would 
drink such stuff ! True, I had my bottle, but it was 
full of tea. The Russians drink enormous quantities of 
tea — though not so strong as you make it.” 

“ Go on, then, Ian ; go on.” 

“We sat a long time, and there was no sign of the 


THE WOLVES. 


143 


wolves coming near us. It was very cold, but our furs 
kept in our warmth. By and by I fell asleep — which 
was not dangerous so long as I kept warm, and I 
thought the cold must wake me before it began to 
numb me. And as I slept I dreamed ; but my dream 
did not change the place ; the forest, the tree I was in, 
all my surroundings were the same. I even dreamed 
that I came awake, and saw everything about me just 
as it was. I seemed to open my eyes, and look about 
me on the dazzling snow from my perch: I was in a 
small tree on the border of a little clearing. 
j “ Suddenly, out of the wood to my left, issued some- 
thing, running fast, but with soundless feet, over the 
snow. I doubted in my dream, whether the object 
were a live thing or only a shadow. It came nearer, and 
I saw it was a child, a little girl, running as if for her 
life. She came straight to the tree I sat in, and when 
close to it, but without a moment’s halt, looked up, and 
I saw a sweet little face, white with terror — which 
somehow seemed, however, not for herself, but for me. 
I called out after her to stop, and I would take her into 
the tree beside me, where the wolves could not reach 
her ; but she only shook her head, and ran on over the 
clearing into the forest. Among the boles I watched 
the fleeting shape appear and disappear and appear 
again, until I saw it no more. Then first I heard an- 
other kind of howl from the wolves — that of pursuit. 
It strengthened and swelled, growing nearer and nearer, 
till at last, through the stillness of the night and the 
moveless forest and the dead snow, came to my ear a 
kind of soft rushing sound. I don’t know how to de- 
scribe it. The rustle of dry leaves is too sharp ; it was 
like a very soft heavy rain on a window — a small dull 
padding padding : it was the feet of the wolves. They 


144 


what’s mine’s mine. 


came nearer and grew louder and louder, but the noise 
was still muffled and soft. Their howling, however, was 
now loud and horrid. I suppose they cannot help howl- 
ing; if they could, they would have too much power 
over poor creatures, coming upon them altogether at 
unawares ; but as it is, they tell, whether they will or 
no, that they are upon the way. At length, dark as a 
torrent of pitch, out of the forest flowed a multitude of 
obscure things — silent as shadows — and streamed 
away, black over the snow, in the direction the child 
had taken. They passed close to the foot of my tree, 
but did not even look up, flitting by like a shadow 
whose substance was unseen. Where the child had 
vanished they also disappeared : plainly they were after 
her! 

“ It was only a dream, mother ! don’t be so fright- 
ened,” interrupted Ian, for his mother gave a little cry, 
almost forgetting what the narration was. 

“ Then first,” he went on, “ I seemed to recover my 
self-possession. I saw that, though I must certainly be 
devoured by the wolves, and the child .could not es- 
cape, I had no choice but go down and follow, do what 
I could, and die with her. Down I was the same in- 
stant, running as I had never run before even in a dream, 
along the track of the wolves. As I ran, I heard their 
howling, but it seemed so far off that I could not hope 
to be in time to kill one of them ere they were upon 
her. Still, by their howling, it did not appear they had 
reached her, and I ran on. Their noise grew louder 
and louder, but I seemed to run miles and miles, won- 
dering what spell was upon me that I could not come 
up with them. All at once the clamor grew hideous, 
and I saw them. They were gathered round a tree, in 
a clearing just like that I had left, and were madly 


THE WOLVES. 


145 


leaping against it, but ever falling back baffled. I 
looked up : in the top of the tree sat the little girl, her 
white face looking down upon them with a smile. All 
the terror had vanished from it. It was still white as 
the snow, but like the snow was radiating a white light 
through the dark foliage of the fir. I see it often, 
mother, so clear that I could paint it. I was enchanted 
at the sight. But she was not in safety yet, and I 
rushed into the heap of wolves, striking and stabbing 
with my hunting-knife. I got to the tree, and was by 
her in a moment. But as I took the child in my arms 
I woke, and knew that it was a dream. I sat in my own 
tree, and up against the stem of it broke a howling, 
surging black wave of wolves. They leaped at the tree- 
bole, as a rock-checked billow would leap. My gun 
was to my shoulder in a moment, and blazed among 
them. Howls of death arose. Their companions fell 
upon the wounded, and ate them up. The tearing and 
yelling at the foot of the tree was like the tumult of 
devils full of hate and malice and greed. Then for the 
first time, I thought whether such creatures might not 
be the open haunts of demons. I do not imagine that, 
when those our Lord drove out of the man asked per- 
mission to go into the swine, they desired anything un- 
heard of before in the demon-world. I think they were 
not in the way of going into tame animals ; but, as they 
must go out of the man, as they greatly dreaded the 
abyss of the disembodied, and as no ferocious animals 
fit to harbor them were near, they begged leave to go 
into such as were accessible, though unsuitable ; where- 
upon the natural consequence followed : their presence 
made the poor swine miserable even to madness, and 
with the instinct of so many maniacs that in death 
alone lies deliverance, they rushed into the loch.” 


146 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ It may be so, Ian ! But* I want to hear how you 
got away from the wolves.” 

“ I fired and fired ; and still they kept rushing on the 
tree-bole, heaping themselves against it, those behind 
struggling up on the backs of those next it, in a storm 
of rage and hunger and jealousy. Not a few who had 
just helped to eat some of their fellows, were themselves 
eaten in turn, and not a scrap of them left ; but it was 
a large pack, and it would have taken a long time to 
kill enow to satisfy those that remained. I killed and 
killed until my ammunition was gone, and then there 
was nothing for it but await the light. When the 
morning began to dawn, they answered its light with 
silence, and turning away swept like a shadow back into 
the wood. But even now sometimes, as I lie awake at 
night, I grow almost doubtful whether the whole was 
not a hideous dream. — Strange to tell, I heard after- 
wards that a child had been killed by them in the 
earlier part of that same night. 

“ Not the less for that was what I went through be- 
tween the time my powder came to an end and the 
dawn of the morning, a real spiritual fact. 

“ In the midst of the howling I grew so sleepy that the 
horrible noise itself seemed to lull me while it kept me 
awake, and I fell into a kind of reverie with which my 
dream came back and mingled. I seemed to be sitting 
in the tree with the little shining girl, and she was my 
own soul ; and all the wrong things I had in me, and 
all the wrong things I had done, with all the weaknesses 
and evil tendencies of my nature, whether mine by fault 
or by inheritance, had taken shape, and, in the persons 
of the howling wolves below, were besieging me, to get 
at me, and devour me. Suddenly my soul was gone. 
Above were the still, bright stars, shining unmoved ; 


THE WOLVES. 


147 


beneath white, betraying was the cold careless snow, and 
the howling wolves ; away through the forest was 
fleeting, ever fleeting, my poor soul, in the likeness of 
a white-faced child ! All at once came a great stillness, 
as of a desert place, where breathed nor life of man nor 
life of beast. I was alone, frightfully alone — alone as 
I had never been before. The creatures at the foot of 
the tree were still howling, but their cry sounded far 
away and small ; they were in some story I had been 
reading, not anywhere in my life ! I was left and lost 
— left by whom ? — lost by whom ? — in the waste of 
my own being, without stay or comfort. I looked up 
to the sky ; it was infinite — yet only a part of myself, 
and much too near to afford me any refuge from the 
desert of my lost self. It came down nearer ; the lim- 
itless space came down, and clasped me, and held me. 
It came close to me — as if I had been a shape off which 
all nature was taking a mould. I was at once every- 
thing and nothing. I cannot tell you how frightful it 
was ! In agony I cried to God, with a cry of utter de- 
spair. I cannot say whether I may believe that he an- 
swered me ; I know this, that a great quiet fell upon 
me — but a quiet as of utter defeat and helplessness. 
Then again, I cannot tell how, the quiet and the help- 
lessness melted away into a sense of God — a feeling as 
if great space all about me was God and not emptiness ! 
Wolf nor sin could touch me ! I was a wide peace — my 
very being peace! And in my mind — whether an echo 
from the Bible, I do not know — were the words : — ‘I, 
even I, am he that comforteth thee. I am God, thy 
savior ! ’ Whereas I had seemed all alone, I was with 
God, the only withne ss man can really share ! I lifted 
my eyes ; morning was in the east, and the wolves were 
slinking away over the snow*” 


148 


what’s mine’s mine. 


How to receive the strange experience the mother 
did not know. She ought to say something, for she 
sorely questioned it! Not a word had he spoken be- 
longing to the religion in which she had brought him 
up, except two — sin and God! There was nothing in 
it about the atonement ! She did not see that it was a 
dream, say rather a vision, of the atonement itself. To 
Ian her interpretation of the atonement seemed an ever- 
lasting and hopeless severance. The patience of God 
must surely be far more tried by those who would inter- 
pret him, than by those who deny him : the latter 
speak lies against him, the former speak lies for him! 
Yet all the time the mother felt as in the presence of 
some creature of a higher world — one above the ordi- 
nary race of men — whom the powers of evil had indeed 
misled, but perhaps not finally snared. She little 
thought how near she was to imagining that good may 
come out of evil — that there is good which is not of 
God ! She did not yet understand that salvation lies 
in being one with Christ, even as the branch is one with 
the vine; — that any salvation short of God is no salva- 
tion at all. What moment a man feels that he belongs 
to God utterly, the atonement is there, the son of God 
is reaping his harvest. 

The good mother was not, however, one of those con- 
ceited, stiff-necked, power-loving souls who have been 
the curse and ruin of the church in all ages ; she was 
but one of those in whom reverence for its passing form 
dulls the perception of unchangeable truth. They shut 
up God’s precious light in the horn-lantern of human 
theory, and the lantern casts such shadows on the path 
to the kingdom as seem to dim eyes insurmountable ob- 
structions. For the sake of what they count revealed, 
they refuse all further revelation, and what satisfies 


THE WOLVES. 


149 


them is merest famine to the next generation of the 
children of the kingdom. Instead of God’s truth they 
offer man’s theory, and accuse of rebellion against God 
such as cannot live on the husks they call food. But 
ah, home-hungry soul ! thy God is not the elder brother 
of the parable, but the father with the best robe and 
the ring — a God high above all thy longing even as 
the heavens are above the earth. 


CHAPTER XV. 


'A 


THE GULF THAT DIVIDED. 

// 

"TTTHEN Ian ceased, a silence deep as the darkness 
VV around, fell upon them. To Ian, the silence 
seemed the very voice of God, clear in the darkness ; to 
the mother it was a darkness interpenetrating the dark- 
ness; it was a great gulf, between her and her boy. 
She must cry to him aloud, but what should she cry ? 
If she did not, an opportunity, perhaps the last, on 
which hung eternal issues, would be gone for ever! 
Each moment’s delay was a disobedience to her con- 
science, a yielding to love’s simple reluctance ! With 
“ sick assay ” she heaved at the weight on her heart, 
but not a word would come. If Ian would but speak 
again, and break the spell of the terrible stillness ! She 
must die in eternal wrong if she did not speak ! But 
no word would come. Something in her would not 
move. It was not in her brain or her lips or her tongue, 
for she knew all the time she could speak if she would. 
The caitiff will was not all on the side of duty ! She 
was not for the truth ! could she then be of the truth ? 
She did not suspect a divine reluctance to urge that 
which was not good. 

Not always when the will works may we lay hold of 
it in the act : somehow, she knew not how, she heard 
herself speaking. 

“Are you sure it was God, Ian?” she said. 

The voice she heard was weak and broken. 


150 


THE GULP THAT DIVIDED. 


151 


“No, mother,” answered Ian, “ but I hope it was.” 

“ Hopes, my dear boy, are not to be trusted.” 

“ That is true, mother ; and yet we are saved by 
hope.” 

“ W e are saved by faith” 

“ I do not doubt it.” 

“You rejoice my heart. But faith in what?” 

“ Faith in God, mother.” 

“ That will not save you.” 

“ No, but God will.” 

“ The devils believe in God, and tremble.” 

“ I believe in the father of Jesus Christ, and do not 
tremble.” 

“You ought to tremble before an unreconciled 
God.” 

“ Like the devils, mother ? ” 

“ Like a sinful child of Adam. Whatever your fan- 
cies, Ian, God will not hear you, except you pray to 
him in the name of his Son.” 

“ Mother, would you take my God from me ? Would 
you blot him out of the deeps of the universe ? ” 

“ Ian ! are you mad ? What frightful things you 
would lay to my charge ! ” 

“ Mother, I would gladly — oh how gladly ! perish 
for ever, to save God from being the kind of God you 
would have me believe him. I love God, and will not 
think him other than good. Rather than believe he 
does not hear every creature that cries to him, whether 
he knows Jesus Christ or not, I would believe there 
was no God, and go mourning to my grave.” 

“ That is not the doctrine of the gospel.” 

“ It is, mother : Jesus himself says, ‘ Every one that 
hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto 
me,” 


152 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Why then do you not come to him, Ian ? ” 

“ I do come to him ; I come to him every day. I 
believe in nobody but him. He only makes the uni- 
verse worth being, or any life worth living ! ” 

“ Ian, I can not understand you ! If you believe like 
that about him, — ” 

“ I don’t believe about him, mother ! I believe in 
him. He is my life.” 

“We will not dispute about words ! The question 
is, do you place your faith for salvation in the suffer- 
ings of Christ for you?” 

“ I do not, mother. My faith is in Jesus himself, not 
in his sufferings.” 

“ Then the anger of God is not turned away from 
you.” 

“ Mother, I say again — I love God, and will not be- 
lieve such things of him as you say. I love him so 
that I would rather lose him than believe so of him.” 

“ Then you do not accept the Bible as your guide ? ” 

“ I do, mother, for it tells me of Jesus Christ. There 
is no such teaching as you say in the Bible.” 

“ How little you know your New Testament ! ” 

“ I don’t know my New Testament ! It is the only 
book I do know ! I read it constantly ! It is the only 
thing I could not live without! — No, I do not mean 
that ! I could do without my Testament ! Christ would 
be all the same ! ” 

“ O Ian ! Ian ! and yet you will not give Christ the 
glory of satisfying divine justice by his suffering for 
your sins ! ” 

“ Mother, to say that the justice of God is satisfied 
with suffering, is a piece of the darkness of hell ; God is 
willing to suffer, ready to inflict suffering to save from 
sin, but suffering is no satisfaction to him or his justice.” 


THE GULF THAT DIVIDED. 


153 


“ What do you mean by his justice then ? ” 

“ That he gives you and me and everybody fair 
play.” 

The homeliness of the phrase offended the moral ear 
of the mother. 

“ How dare you speak lightly of him in my hearing ! ” 
she cried. 

“ Because I will speak for God even to the face of 
my mother! ” answered Ian. “ He is more to me than 
you, mother — ten times more.” 

“You speak against God, Ian,” she rejoined, calmed 
by the feeling she had roused. 

“ No, mother. He speaks against God who says he 
does things that are not good. It does not make a 
thing good to call it good. I speak for him when I say 
he cannot but give fair play. He knows he put me 
where I was sure to sin ; he will not comdemn me be- 
cause I have sinned ; he leaves me to do that myself. 
He will condemn me only if I do not turn away from 
sin, for he has made me able to turn from it, and I do.” 

“ He will forgive sin only for Christ’s sake.” 

“He forgives it for his own name’s sake, his own 
love’s sake. There is no such word as for Christ's sake 
in the New Testament — except where Paul prays us 
for Christ’s sake to be reconciled to God. It is in the 
English New Testament, but not in the Greek.” 

“ Then you do not believe that the justice of God 
demands the satisfaction of the sinner’s endless punish- 
ment ? ” 

“ I do not. Nothing can satisfy the justice of God 
but justice in his creature. The justice of God is the 
love of what is right, and the doing of what is right. 
Eternal misery in the name of justice could satisfy none 
but a demon whose bad laws had been broken.” 


154 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I grant you that no amount of suffering on the part 
of the wicked could satisfy justice ; but it is the Holy 
One who suffers for our sins ! ” 

“ O, mother ! Justice do wrong for its own satis- 
faction! Did Jesus deserve punishment? If not, then 
to punish him was to wrong him ! ” 

“ But he was willing ; he consented.” 

“ He yielded to injustice — but the injustice was man’s 
not God’s. If Justice insisted on punishment, it would 
at least insist on the guilty, not the innocent, being 
punished! it would revolt from the idea of the inno- 
cent being punished for the guilty ! Mind, I say being 
; punished , not suffering: that is another thing al- 
together. It is an eternal satisfaction to love to suffer 
for the guilty, but not to justice that innocence should 
be punished for the guilty. The whole idea of such 
atonement is the merest subterfuge, a figment of the 
paltry human intellect to reconcile difficulties of its own 
invention. Once my father said when Alister had done 
something wrong, ‘He must be punished except some 
one will be punished for him ! ’ I offered to take his 
place partly that it seemed expected of me, partly that 
I was moved by vanity, and partly that I foresaw what 
would follow.” 

“ And what did follow ? ” asked the mother, to whom 
the least word out of the past concerning her husband, 
was like news from the world beyond. At the same 
time it seemed almost an offence that one of his sons 
should know anything about him she did not know. 

“ He scarcely touched me, mother,” answered Ian. 
“ The thing taught me something very different from 
what he had meant to teach by it. That he failed 
to carry out his idea of justice helped me afterwards to 
see that God could not have done it either for that it 


THE GULF THAT DIVIDED. 


155 


was not justice. Some perception of this must have 
lain at the root of the heresy that Jesus did not suffer, 
but a cloud phantom took his place on the cross. 
Wherever people speculate instead of obeying, they fall 
into endless error.” 

“You graceless boy! Do you dare to say your 
father speculated instead of obeying?” the mother 
cried, hot with indignation. 

“ No, mother. It was not my father who invented 
that way of accounting for the death of our Lord.” 

“ He believed it ! ” 

“ He accepted it, saturated with the tradition of the 
elders before he could think for himself. He does not 
believe it now.” 

“ But why then should Christ have suffered?” 

“ It is the one fact that explains to me everything,” 
said Ian, “ But I am not going to talk about it. So 
long as your theory satisfies you, mother, why should I 
show you mine ? When it no longer satisfies you, 
when it troubles you as it has troubled me, and as I 
pray God it may trouble you, when you feel it stand 
between you and the best love you could give God, 
then I will share my very soul with you — tell you 
thoughts which seem to sublimate my very being in 
adoration.” 

“ I do not see what other meaning you can put upon 
the statement that he was a sacrifice for our sins ! ” 

“ There is no question about that, mother ! Had we 
not sinned he would never have died ; and he died to 
deliver us from our sins. He against whom was the 
sin, became the sacrifice for it ; the Father suffered in 
the Son, for they are one. But if I could see no other 
explanation than yours, I would not, could not accept 
it — for God’s sake I would not.” 


156 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ How you can say you believe in Christ, when you 
do not believe in the atonement ! ” 

“It is not so, mother. I do not believe what you 
mean by the atonement ; what God means by it, I de- 
sire to accept. But we are never told to believe in the 
atonement; we are told to believe in Christ — and, 
mother, in the name of the great Father who hears me 
speak, I do believe in him.” 

“ How can you, when you do not believe what God 
says about him ? ” 

“ I do. God does not say those things about him you 
think he says. They are mere traditions, not the teach- 
ing of those who understood him. But I might believe 
all about him quite correctly, yet not believe in him.” 

“ What do you call believing in him then ? ” 

“Obeying him, mother — to say it as shortly as I 
can. I try to obey him in the smallest things he 
says — only there are no small things he says — and 
so does Alister. I strive to be what he would 
have me, nor do I hold anything else worth my care. 
Let a man trust in his atonement to absolute assurance 
for a man to trust in it, if he does not do the things he 
tells him — the very things he said — he does not be- 
lieve in him. He may be a good man, but he has not 
yet heard enough and learned enough of the Father to 
be sent to Jesus to learn more.” 

“Then I do not believe in him,” said the mother, 
with strange, sad gentleness — for his words awoke an 
old anxiety never quite at rest. 

Ian was silent. The darkness seemed to deepen 
around them, and the silence grew keen. The mother 
began to tremble. 

“ God knows” said Ian at length, and again the 
broken silence closed around them. 


THE GULF THAT DIVIDED, 


157 


It was between God and his mother now ! Unwise 
counsellors will persuade the half crazy doubter in his 
own faith, to believe that he does believe ! — how much 
better to convince him that his faith is a poor thing, 
that he must rise and go and do the thing that Jesus 
tells him, and so believe indeed ! When will men un- 
derstand that it is neither thought nor talk, neither sor- 
row for sin nor love of holiness that is required of them, 
but obedience ! To be and to obey are one. 

A cold hand grasping her heart, the mother rose, and 
went from the room. The gulf seemed now at last ut- 
terly, hopelessly impassable ! She had only feared it 
before ; she knew it now ! She did not see that, while 
she believed evil things of God, and none the less that 
she called them good, oneness was impossible between 
her and any being in God’s creation. 

The poor mother thought herself broken-hearted, and 
lay down too sick to know that she was trembling from 
head to foot. Such was the hold, such the authority 
of traditional human dogma on her soul — a soul that 
scorned the notion of priestly interposition between 
God and his creature — that, instead of glorifying God 
that she had given birth to such a man, she wept bit- 
terly because he was on the broad road to eternal con- 
demnation. 

But as she lay, now weeping, now still and cold with 
despair, she found that for some time she had not been 
thinking. But she had not been asleep ! Whence then 
was this quiet that was upon her ? Something had hap- 
pened, though she knew of nothing ! There was in her 
as it were a moonlight of peace ! 

“ Can it be God ? ” she said to herself. 

No more than Ian could she tell whether it was God 
or not ; but from that night she had an idea in her soul 


158 


what’s mine’s mine. 


by which to reach after “the peace of God.” She 
lifted up her heart in such prayer as she had never 
prayed before ; and slowly, imperceptibly awoke in her 
the feeling that, if she was not believing aright, God 
would not therefore cast her off, but would help her to 
believe as she ought to believe : was she not willing ? 
Therewith she began to feel as if the gulf betwixt her 
and Ian were not so wide as she had supposed ; and 
that if it were, she would hope in the Son of Man. 
Doubtless he was in rebellion against God, seeing he 
would question his ways, and refuse to believe the word 
he had spoken, but surely something might be done for 
him ! The possibility had not yet dawned upon her that 
there could be anything in the New Testament but 
those doctrines against which the best in him revolted. 
She little suspected the glory of sky and earth and sea 
eternal that would one day burst upon her ! that she 
would one day see God not only good but infinitely 
good — infinitely better than she had dared to think 
him, fearing to imagine him better than he was ! Mor- 
tal, she dreaded being more just than God, more pure 
than her maker ! 

“ I will go away to-morrow ! ” said Ian to himself. 
“ I am only a pain to her ! She will come to see things 
better without me ! I cannot live in her sight any 
longer now ! I will go and come again.” 

His heart broke forth in prayer. 

“O God, let my mother see that thou art indeed 
true-hearted ; that thou dost not give us life by parings 
and subterfuges, but abundantly; that thou dost not 
make men in order to assert thy dominion over them, 
but that they may partake of thy life. O God, have 
pity when I cannot understand, and teach me as thou 
wouldst the little one whom, if thou wert an earthly 


THE GULF THAT DIVIDED. 


159 


father amongst us as thy son was an earthly son, thou 
wouldst carry about in thy arms. When pride rises in 
me, and I feel as if I ought to be free and walk without 
thy hand ; when it looks as if a man should be great in 
himself, nor need help from God ; then think thou of 
me, and I shall know that I cannot live or think with- 
out the self-willing life ; that thou art because thou art, 
I am because thou art ; that I am deeper in thee than 
my life, thou more to my being than that being to it- 
self. Was not that Satan’s temptation, Father? Did 
he not take self for the root of self in him, when God 
only is the root of all self ? And he has not repented 
yet ! Is it his thought coming up in me, flung from the 
hollow darkness of his soul into mine ? Thou knowest, 
when it comes I am wretched. I love it not. I would 
have thee lord and love over all. But I cannot under- 
stand : how comes it to look sometimes as if independ- 
ence must be the greater? A lie cannot be greater 
than the truth! I do not understand, but thou dost. 
I cannot see my foundation ; I cannot dig up the roots 
of my being : that would be to understand creation ! 
Will the Adversary ever come to see that thou only 
art grand and beautiful ? How came he to think to be 
greater by setting up for himself ? How was it that it 
looked so to him? How is it that, not being true, it 
should ever look so ? There must be an independence 
that thou lovest, of wdiich this temptation is the shadow ? 
That must be how Satan fell ! — for the sake of not be- 
ing a slave ! — that he might be a free being ! Ah, 
Lord, I see how it all comes ! It is because we are not 
near enough to thee to partake of thy liberty that we 
want a liberty of our own different from thine ! We do 
not see that we are one with thee, that thy glory is our 
glory, that we can have none but in thee ! that we are 


160 


what’s mine’s mine. 


of thy family, thy home, thy heart, and what is great 
for thee is great for us ! that man’s meanness is to 
want to be great out of his Father ! Without thy eter- 
nity in us we are so small that we think ourselves great., 
and are thus miserably abject and contemptible. Thou 
only art true ! thou only art noble ! thou wantest no 
glory for selfishness ! thou doest, thou art, what thou 
requirest of thy children ! I know it, for I see it in 
Jesus, who casts the contempt of obedience upon the 
baseness of pride, who cares only for thee and for us, 
never thinking of himself save as a gift to give us ! O 
lovely, perfect Christ! with my very life I worship 
thee ! Oh, pray, Christ ! make me and my brother 
strong to be the very thing thou wouldst have us, as 
thy brothers, the children of thy Father. Thou art our 
perfect brother — perfect in love, in courage, in ten- 
derness ! Amen, Lord ! Good-night ! I am thine.” 

He was silent for a few moments, then resumed: 

‘"•Lord, thou knowest whither my thoughts turn the 
me ment I cease praying to thee. I dared not think of 
her, but that I know thee. But for thee, my heart 
w<? uld be as water within me ! Oh, take care of her, 
cane near to her! Thou didst send her where she could 
not learn fast — but she did learn. And now, God, I 
do not know where she is! Thou only of all in this 
world knowest, for to thee she lives though gone from 
my sight and knowledge in the dark to me. Pray 
Father, let her know that thou art near her, and that I 
love her. Thou hast made me love her by taking her 
from me : thou wilt give her to me again ! In this hope 
I will live all my days, until thou takest me also ; for 
to hope mightily is to believe well in thee. I will hope 
in thee infinitely. Amen, Father ! ” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


• THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 

B Y slow degrees, with infinite subdivisions and ap- 
parent reversals of change, the autumn had 
passed into winter indeed. Cloud above, mire below, 
mist and rain all between, made up many days ; only, 
like the dreariest life, they were broken through and 
parted, lest they should seem the universe itself, by 
such heavenly manifestations, such gleams and glimpses 
of better, as come into all lives, all winters, all evil 
weathers. What is loosed on earth is loosed first in 
heaven : we have often shared of heaven, when we 
thought it but a softening of earth’s hardness. Every 
relief is a promise, a pledge as well as a passing meal. 
The frost at length had brought with it brightness and 
persuasion and rousing. In the fields it was swelling 
and breaking the clods ; and for the heart of man, it 
did something to break up that clod too. A sense of 
friendly pleasure filled all the human creatures. The 
children ran about like wild things ; the air seemed to 
intoxicate them. The mother went out walking with 
the girls, and they talked of their father and Christian 
and Mr. Sercombe, who were all coming together. For 
some time they saw nothing more of their next neigh- 
bors. 

They had made some attempts at acquaintance with 
the people of the glen, but unhappily were nowise cour- 
teous enough for their ideas of good breeding, and of- 
161 


162 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


fended both their pride and their sense of propriety. 
The manners and address of these northern peasants 
were blameless — nearly perfect indeed, like those of 
the Irish, and in their own houses beyond criticism ; 
those of the ladies conventional where not rudely con- 
descending. If Mistress Conal was an exception to the 
rest of the clan, even she would be more civil to a 
stranger than to her chief whom she loved — until the 
stranger gave her offence. And if then she passed to 
imprecation, she would not curse like an ordinary wo- 
man, but like a poetess, gaining rather than losing dig- 
nity. She would rise to the evil occasion, no hag, but 
a largely-offended sibyl, whom nothing thereafter 
should ever appease. To forgive was a virtue unknown 
to Mistress Conal. Its more than ordinary difficulty in 
forgiving is indeed a special fault of the Celtic char- 
acter. This must not, however, be confounded with a 
desire for revenge. The latter is by no means a specially 
Celtic characteristic. Resentment and vengeance are 
far from inseparable. The heart that surpasses courtesy, 
except indeed that courtesy be rooted in love divine, 
must, when treated with discourtesy, experience the 
worse revulsion, feel the bitterer indignation. But 
many a Celt would forgive, and forgive thoroughly and 
heartily, with his enemy in his power, who, so long as 
he remained beyond his reach, could not even imagine 
circumstances in which they might be reconciled. To 
a Celt the summit of wrong is a slight, but apology is 
correspondingly potent with him. Mistress Conal, 
however, had not the excuse of a specially courteous 
nature. 

Christina and Mercy, calling upon her one morning, 
were not ungraciously received, but had the misfortune 
to remark, trusting to her supposed ignorance of Eng- 


THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 


163 


lish, upon the dirtiness of her floor, they themselves 
having imported not a little of the moisture that had 
turned its surface into a muddy paste. She said nothing, 
but, to the general grudge she bore the possessors of 
property once belonging to her clan, she now added a 
personal one ; the offence lay cherished and smoulder- 
ing. Had the chief offended her, she would have found 
a score of ways to prove to herself that he meant noth- 
ing ; but she desired no mitigation of the trespass of 
strangers. 

The people at the New House did not get on very 
well with any of the clan. In the first place, they 
were regarded not merely as interlopers, but al- 
most as thieves of the property — though in truth it 
had passed to them first through other hands. In the 
second place, rumor had got about that they did not 
behave with sufficient respect to the chief’s family, in 
the point of whose honor the clan was the more exact- 
ing because of their common poverty. Hence the in- 
habitants of the glen, though they were of course po- 
lite, showed but little friendliness. 

But the main obstacle to their reception was in 
themselves: the human was not much developed in 
them ; they understood nothing of their own beings ; 
they had never had any difficulty with themselves : — 
how could they understand others, especially in circum- 
stances and with histories so different from their own ! 
They had not a notion how poor people feel, still less 
poor people poorer than before — or how they regard 
the rich who have what they have lost. They did not 
understand any human feeling — not even the silliness 
they called love — a godless, mindless affair, fit only for 
the doll-histories invented by children : they had a feel- 
ing, or a feeling had them, till another feeling came 


164 


what’s mine’s mine. 


and took its place. When a feeling was there, they 
felt as if it would never go ; when it was gone, they 
felt as if it had never been ; when it returned, they felt 
as if it had never gone. They seldom came so near 
anything as to think about it, never put a question to 
themselves as to how a thing affected them, or concern- 
ing the phenomena of its passage through their con- 
sciousness. There is a cliild-eternity of soul that needs 
to ask nothing, because it understands everything : the 
ways of the spirit are open to it ; but where a soul does 
not understand, and has to learn, how is it to do so with- 
out thinking? They knew nothing of labor, nothing of 
danger, nothing of hunger, nothing of cold, nothing of 
sickness, nothing of loneliness. The realities of life, in 
their lowest forms as in their highest, were faf from 
them. If they had nearly gone through life instead of 
having but entered upon it, they would have had some 
ground for thinking themselves unfairly dealt with ; for 
to be made, and then left to be worthless, unfit even for 
damnation, might be suspected for hard lines ; but 
there is One, who takes a perfect interest in his lowliest 
creatures, and will not so spare it. They were girls 
notwithstanding who could make themselves agreeable, 
and passed for clever — Christina because she could give 
a sharp answer, and sing a drawing-room song, Mercy 
because as yet she mostly held her tongue. That there 
was at the same time in each of them the possibility of 
being developed into something of inestimable value, is 
merely to say that they were human. 

The days passed, and Christmas drew near. The 
gentlemen arrived. There was family delight and a 
bustling reception.\ It is amazing — it shows indeed 
how deep and divine, how much beyond the individual 
self are the family affections — that such gladness breaks 


THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 


165 


forth in the meeting of persons who, within an hour or 
so of the joyous welcome, self getting the better of the 
divine, will begin to feel bored; and will each lay the 
blame of the disappointment on the other, j ? } 

Coats were pulled off ; mufflers were unwound ; 
pretty hands were helping ; strong hands were lifting 
and carrying ; every room was bright with a great fire ; 
tea was refused, and dinner welcomed. After dinner 
came the unpacking of great boxes ; and in the midst 
of the resultant pleasure, the proposal came to be made 
— none but Christina knew how — that the inhabitants 
of the cottage should be invited to dinner on Christ- 
mas-eve. It was carried at once, and the next after- 
noon a formal invitation was sent. 

At the cottage it caused conference, no discussion. 
The lady of the New House had not called with her 
girls, it was true ; but then neither had the lady of the 
castle — for that was the clans people’s name for the 
whole ridge on which the cottage stood — called on the 
new-comers ! If there was offence, it was mutual ! The 
unceremonious invitation might indicate that it was not 
thought necessary to treat them as persons who knew 
the ways of society ; on the other hand, if it meant that 
they were ready to throw aside formalities and behave 
heartily, it would be wrong not to meet them half-way ! 
They resolved therefore to make a counter-proposal; 
and if the invitation came of neighborliness, and not of 
imagined patronage, they would certainly meet it in a 
friendly spirit! Answer was returned, sealed with no 
mere crest, but with a coat of arms, to the effect that it 
had been the custom since time forgotten for the chief 
to welcome his people and friends without distinction 
on Christmas-eve, and the custom could not be broken ; 
but if the ladies and gentlemen of the New House 


166 


what’s mine’s mine. 


would favor them with their company on ifie occasion, 
to dine and dance, the chief and his family would grate- 
fully accept any later offer of hospitality Mr. and Mrs. 
Peregrine Palmer might do them the honor to send. 

This reply gave occasion to a good deal of talk at the 
New House, not entirely of a sort which the friends of 
the chief would have enjoyed hearing. Frequent were 
the bursts of laughter from the men at the assumption 
of the title of chief by a man with no more land than 
he could just manage to live upon. The village they 
said, and said truly, in which the greater number of his 
people lived, was not his at all — not a foot of the 
ground on which it stood, not a stone or sod of which 
it was built — but belonged to a certain Canadian, who 
was about to turn all his territory around and adjacent 
into a deer forest ! They could not see that, if there 
had ever been anything genuine in the patriarchal rela- 
tion, the mere loss of the clan-property could no 
more cause the chieftainship to cease, than could the 
loss of the silver-hilted Andrew Ferrara, descended from 
father to son for so many generations. 

/ There are dull people, and just as many clever peo- 
ple, who look upon customs of society as on laws of na- 
ture, and judge the worth of others by their knowledge 
or ignorance of the same. So doing they disable them- 
selves from understanding the essential, which is, like 
love, the fulfilling of the law, A certain Englishman 
gave great offence in an Arab tent by striding across 
the food placed for the company on the ground : would 
any Celt, Irish or Welsh, have been guilty of such a 
blunder? But there was not any overt offence on the 
present occasion. They called it indeed a cool proposal 
that they should put off their Christmas-party for that 
of a plough man in shabby kilt and hob-nailed shoes ; 


THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 


167 


but on their amused indignation supervened the 
thought that they were in a wild part of the country, 
where it would be absurd to expect the savoir vivre of 
the south, and it would be amusing to see the customs 
of the land : by suggestion and seeming response the 
clever Christina, unsuspected even of Mercy, was the 
motive power to bring about the acceptance of the 
chief’s invitation. 

A friendly answer was sent : they would not go to 
dinner, they said, as it was their custom also to dine at 
home on Christmas-eve ; but they would dine early, 
and spend the evening with them. 

To the laird the presence of the lowland girls prom- 
ised a great addition to the merry-making. During the 
last generation all the gentlemen-farmers of the clan, 
and most of the humbler tacksmen as well had vanished, 
and there was a wide intellectual space between those 
all left and the family of the chief. Often when Ian 
was away, would Alister, notwithstanding his love for 
his people and their entire response, have felt lonely 
but for labor. 

There being in the cottage no room equal to the re- 
ception of a large company, and the laird receiving all 
the members of the clan — “ poor,” I was going to say, 
“ and rich,” but there were no rich — as well as any 
neighbor or traveller who chose to appear, the father 
of the present chief had had good regard to the neces- 
sities of entertainment in the construction of a new 
barn : companionship, large feasting, and dancing had 
been even more considered than the storing and thresh- 
ing of corn, among its imperative uses. 

| There are in these days many who will mock ; for 
my part I am proud of a race whose social relations are 
the last upon which they will retrench, whose pleasure 


168 


what’s mine’s mine. 


latest yielded is their hospitality. It is a common feel- 
ing that only the well-to-do have a right to be hospita- 
ble ; the ideal flower of hospitality is almost unknown 
to the rich ; it can hardly be grown save in the gardens 
of the poor ; it is one of then* beatitudes. / 

Means in Glenruadh had been shrinking for many 
years, but the heart of the chief never shrank. His 
dwelling dwindled from a castle to a house, from a 
house to a cottage ; but the hospitality did not dwindle. 
As the money vanished, the show diminished; the 
place of entertainment from a hall became a kitchen, 
from a kitchen changed to a barn ; but the heart of the 
chief was the same ; the entertainment was but little 
altered, the hospitality not in the least. When things 
grow hard, the first saving is generally off others ; the 
Macruadh’s was off himself. The land was not his 
save as steward of the grace of God! Let it not be 
supposed he ran in debt : with his mother at the head, 
or rather the heart of affairs, that could not be. She 
was not one to regard as hospitality a readiness to share 
what you have not ! 

Little did good Doctor Johnson suspect the shifts to 
which some of the highland families he visited were 
driven — not to feed, but to house him ; and housing 
in certain conditions of society is the large half of hos- 
pitality. Where he did not find his quarters comfort- 
able, he did not know what crowding had to be devised, 
what inconveniences endured by the family, that he 
might have what ease and freedom were possible. Be 
it in stone hall or thatched cottage, the chief must en- 
tertain the stranger as well as befriend his own ! This 
was the fulfilling of his office — none the less, that it 
had descended upon him in evil times. That seldom 
if ever had a chief been Chsistian enough or strong 


THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 


169 


enough to fill to the full the relation of father of his 
people, was nothing against the ideal fact in the existent 
relation ; it was rather for it : now that the chieftain- 
ship had come to a man with a large notion of what it 
required of him, he was the more, not the less ready to 
aim at the mark of the idea, he was not the more easily 
to be turned aside from a true attempt to live up to his 
calling, that many had yielded and were swept along 
bound slaves in the triumph of Mammon ! He looked 
on his calling as entirely enough to fill full the life that 
would fulfill the calling. It was ambition enough for 
him to be the head of his family, with the highest of 
earthly relations to realize towards its members. As to 
the vulgar notion of obligation to himself, he had learned 
to despise it. 

“ Rubbish ! ” Ian would say. “ I owe myself nothing. 
What has myself ever done for me, but lead me wrong ! 
What but it has come between me and my duty — be- 
tween me and my very Father in heaven — between me 
and my fellow man ! The fools of greed would per- 
suade that a man has no right to waste himself in the 
low contest of making and sharing a humble living ; he 
ought to make money ! make a figure in the world, for- 
sooth ! be somebody ! ‘ Dwell among the people ! ’ 

Such would say : ‘ Bah ! let them look after themselves ! 
If they cannot pay their rents, others will ; what is it 
to you if the rents are not paid ? Send them about their 
business ; turn the land into a deer-forest or a sheep- 
farm, and clear them out! They have no rights ! A 
man is bound to the children of his body begotten, but 
the people are nothing to him. A man is not his 
brother’s keeper — except when he has got him in 
prison ! ’ And so on, in the name of the great devil ! ” 

Whether there was enough in Alister to have met 


170 


what’s mine’s mine. 


and overcome the spirit of the world, had he been 
brought up at Oxford or Cambridge, I have not to 
determine ; there was that in him at least which would 
have come to repent bitterly had he yielded ; but 
brought up as he was, he was not only able to entertain 
the exalted idea presented to him, but to receive and 
make it his. With joy he recognized the higher dignity 
of the shepherd of a few poor, lean, wool-torn human 
sheep, than of the man who stands for himself, however 
“ spacious in the possession of dirt.” He who holds 
dead land a possession, and living souls none of his, 
needs wake no curse, for he is in the very pit of crea- 
tion, a live outrage on the human family. 

( If Alister Macruadh was not in the highest grade of 
Christianity, he was on his way thither, for he was doing 
the work that was given him to do, which is the first 
condition of all advancement. He had much to learn 
yet, but he was one who, from every point his feet 
touched, was on the start to go further. 

The day of the holy eve rose clear and bright. Snow 
was on the hills, and frost in the valley. There had 
been a time when at this season great games were played 
between neighbor districts or clans ; but here there were 
no games now, because there were so few men, and the 
more active part fell to the women. Mistress Macruadh 
was busy all day with her helpers, preparing a dinner 
of mutton, and beef, and fowls, and red-deer ham ; and 
the men soon gave the barn something of the aspect of 
the old patriarchal hall for which it was no very poor 
substitute. A long table, covered with the finest linen, 
was laid for all comers ; and when the guests took their 
places, they needed no arranging ; all knew their stand- 
ing, and seated themselves according to knowledge. 
Two or three small farmers took modestly the upper 


THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 


171 


places once occupied by immediate relatives of the 
chief, for of the old gentry of the clan there were none. 
But all were happy, for their chief was with them still. 
Their reverence was none the less that they were at 
home with him. They knew his worth, and the rough- 
est among them would mind what the Macruadh said. 
They knew that he feared nothing ; that he was strong 
as the red stag after which the clan was named ; that, 
with genuine respect for every man, he would at the 
least insolence knock the fellow down ; that he was the 
best shot, the best sailor, the best ploughman in the 
clan : I would have said the best swordsman , but that, 
except Ian, there was not another left to it. 

Not many of them, however, understood how much 
he believed that he had to give an account of his people. 
He was far from considering such responsibility the 
clergyman’s only. Again and again had he expostulated 
with some, to save them from the slow gaping hell of 
drink, and in one case, he had reason to hope, with 
success. 

As they sat at dinner, it seemed to the young fellow 
who, with his help, had so far been victorious that the 
chief scarcely took his eyes off him. One might think 
there was small danger where the hostess allowed 
nothing beyond water and milk but small ale ; the 
chief, however, was in dread lest he should taste even 
that, and one moment caught the longing look he threw 
at the jug as it passed. He rose and went down the 
table, speaking to this one and that, but stopped behind 
the lad, and putting his arm round his shoulders, whis- 
pered in his ear. He looked up in his face with a sol- 
emn smile : had not the chief embraced him before all ! 
He was only a shepherd-lad, but his chief cared for him ! 

In the afternoon the extemporized tables were cleared 


172 


what’s mine’s mine. 


away, candles were fixed in rough sconces along the 
walls, not without precaution against fire, and the floor 
was rubbed clean — for the barn was floored throughout 
with pine, in parts polished with use. The walls were 
already covered with the plaids of the men and women, 
each kept in place by a stone or two on the top of the 
wall where the rafters 'rested. In one end was a great 
heap of yellow oat-straw, which, partly levelled, made 
a most delightful divan. What with the straw, the 
plaids, the dresses, the shining of silver ornaments, and 
the flash of here and there a cairngorm or an amethyst, 
there was not a little color in the place. Some of the 
guests were poorly but all were decently attired, and 
the shabbiest behaved as ladies and gentlemen. 

The party from the New House walked through the 
still, star-watched air, with the motionless mountains 
looking down on them, and a silence around, which they 
never suspected as a presence. The little girls were of 
the company, and there was much merriment. Foolish 
compliments were not wanting, offered chiefly on the 
part of Mr. Sercombe, and accepted on that of Christina. 
The ladies, under their furs and hoods, were in their 
best, with all the jewels they could wear at once, for 
they had heard that highlanders have a passion for 
color, and that poor people are always best pleased 
when you go to them in your finery. The souls of 
these Sasunnachs were full of things. They made a 
fine show as they emerged from the darkness of their 
wraps into the light of the numerous candles ; nor did 
the approach of the widowed chieffainess to receive 
them, on the arm of Alister, with Ian on her other side, 
fail in dignity. The mother was dressed in a rich, 
matronly black silk ; the chief was in the full dress of 
his clan — the old-fashioned coat of the French court, 


THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 


173 


with its silver buttons and ruffles of fine lace, the kilt ^ 
of Macruadh tartan in which red predominated, the 
silver-mounted sporran — of the skin and adorned with 
the head of an otter caught with the bare hands of one 
of his people, and a silver mounted dirk of length un- 
usual, famed for the beauty of both hilt and blade ; Ian 
was similarly though less showily clad. When she saw 
the stately dame advancing between her sons, one at 
least of her visitors felt a doubt whether their conde- 
scension would be fully appreciated. 

As soon as their reception was over, the piper — to 
the discomfort of Mr. Sercombe’s English ears — began 
his invitation to the dance, and in a moment the floor 
was in a tumult of reels. The girls, unacquainted with 
their own country’s dances, preferred looking on, and 
after watching reel and straphspey for some time, alto- 
gether declined attempting either. But by and by it 
was the turn of the clanspeople to look on while the 
lady of the house and her sons danced a quadrille or 
two with their visitors ; after which the chief and his 
brother pairing with the two elder girls, the ladies were 
astonished to find them the best they had ever waltzed 
with, although they did not dance quite in the London 
way. Ian’s dancing, Christina said, was French ; 
Mercy said all she knew was that the chief took the 
work and left her only the motion : she felt as in a 
dream of flying. Before the evening was over, the 
young men had so far gained on Christina that Mr. 
Sercombe looked a little commonplace. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER. 


HIE dancing began about six o’clock, and at ten it 



-L was time for supper. It was ready, but there 
was no room for it except the barn ; the dancing there- 
fore had to cease for a while, that the table might again 
be covered. The ladies put on their furs and furry 
boots and gloves, and went out into the night with the 


rest. 


The laird and Christina started together, but, far 
from keeping at her side, Alister went and came, now 
talking to this couple, now to that, and adding to the 
general pleasure with every word he spoke. Ian and 
Mercy walked together, and as often as the chief left 
her side, Christina joined them. Mrs. Palmer staid 
with their hostess ; her husband took the younger chil- 
dren by the hand ; Mr. Sercombe and Christian saun- 
tered along in the company, talking now to one, now to 
another of the village girls. 

All through the evening Christina and Mercy noted 
how instantly the word of the chief was followed in the 
smallest matter, and the fact made its impression on 
them ; for undeveloped natures in the presence of a force 
revere *it as power — understanding by power , not 
the strength to create, to harmonize, to redeem, to dis- 
cover the true, to suffer with patience ; but the faculty 
of having things one’s own vulgar, self-adoring way. / 

Ian had not proposed to Mercy that they should 


174 


BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER. 


175 


walk together ; but when the issuing crowd began to 
break into twos and threes, they found themselves side 
by side. The company took its way along the ridge, 
and the road eastward. The night was clear, and like 
a great sapphire frosted with topazes — reminding Ian 
that, solid as is the world under our feet, it hangs in the 
will of God. Mercy and he walked for some time in 
silence. It was a sudden change from the low barn, 
the dull candles, and the excitement of the dance, to 
the awful space, the clear pure far-off lights, and the 
great stillness. Both felt it, though differently. There 
was in both of them the quest after peace. It is not 
the banished demon only that wanders seeking rest, but 
souls upon souls, and in ever growing numbers. The 
world and Hades swarm with them. They long after a 
repose that is not mere cessation of labor : there is a 
positive, an active rest. Mercy was only beginning to 
seek it, and that without knowing what it was she 
needed. Ian sought it in silence with God ; she in 
crepitant intercourse with her kind. Naturally ready 
to fall into gloom, but healthy enough to avoid it, she 
would rush at anything to do — not to keep herself 
from thinking, for she had hardly begun to think, but 
to escape that heavy sense of non-existence, that weary 
and restless want which is the only form life can take 
to the yet unliving, those who have not yet awaked 
and arisen from the dead. She was a human chicken 
that had begun to be aware of herself, but had not yet 
attacked the shell that enclosed her : because it was 
transparent, and she could see life about her, she did 
not know that she was in a shell, or that, if she did not 
put forth the might of her own life, she was sealing 
herself up : a life in death, in her antenatal coffin. 
Many who think themselves free have never yet even 


176 


what’s mine’s mine. 


seen the shell that imprisons them — know nothing of 
the liberty wherewith the Lord of our life would set 
them free. Men fight many a phantom when they 
ought to be chipping at their shells. “Thou art the 
dreamer ! ” they cry to him who would wake them. 
“ See how diligent we are to get on in the world ! 
We labor as if we should never go out of it.” What 
they call the world is but their shell, which is all the 
time killing the infant Christ that houses with them ! 

Ian looked up to the sky, and breathed a deep 
breath. Mercy looked up in his face, and saw his 
strangely beautiful smile. 

“ What are you thinking of, Captain Macruadh ? ” 
she said. 

“ I was thinking,” he answered, “ that perhaps up 
there ” — he wav^d his arm wide over his head ■«-. 
“ might be something like room ; but I doubt it, I 
doubt it ! ” 

Naturally, Mercy was puzzled. The speech sounded 
quite mad, and yet he could not be mad, he had danced 
so well ! She took comfort that her father was close 
behind. 

“ Did you never feel,” he resumed, “ as if you could 
not anyhow get room enough ? ” 

“ No,” answered Mercy, “ never.” 

Ian fell a thinking how to wake in her a feeling of 
what he meant. He had perceived that one of the first 
elements in human education is the sense of space — of 
which sense, probably, the star-dwelt heaven is the first 
awakener. He believed that without the heavens we 
could not have learned the largeness in things below 
them, could not, for instance, have felt the mystery of 
the high-ascending gothic roof — for without the greater 
we cannot interpret the less ; and he thought that to 


BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER. 


177 


have the sense of largeness developed might be to come 
a little nearer to the truth of things, to the recognition 
of spiritual relations. 

“ Did you ever see anything very big? ” he asked. 

“ I suppose London is as big as most things ! ” she 
answered, after a moment. 

“ Did you ever see London ? ” he asked. 

“ We generally live there half the year.” 

“ Pardon me ; I did not ask if you had ever been to 
London,” said Ian ; “ but if you had ever seen London.” 

“ I know the west end pretty well.” 

“ Did it ever strike you as very large ? ” 

“ Perhaps not ; but the west end is only a part of 
London.” 

“Did you ever see London from the top of St. 
Paul’s?” 

“ No.” 

“ Did you ever see it from the top of Hampstead- 
heath? ” 

“ I have been there several times, but I don’t remem- 
ber seeing London from it. We don’t go to London 
for the sights.” 

“ Then you have not seen London ! ” 

Mercy was annoyed. Ian did not see that she was, 
else perhaps he would not have gone on — which would 
have been a pity, for a little annoyance would do her 
no harm. At the same time the mood was not favor- 
able to receiving any impression from the region of the 
things that are not seen. A pause followed. 

“ It is so delightful,” said Ian at length, “ to come 
out of the motion and the heat and the narrowness into 
the still, cold greatness ! ” 

“ You seem to be enjoying yourself pretty well not- 
withstanding, Captain Macruadh ! ” 


178 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ What made you think so ? ” he asked, turning to 
her with a smile. 

“ You were so merry — not with me — you think me 
only a stupid lowland girl ; but the other young jiersons 
you danced with, laughed very much at things you said 
to them.” 

“You are right; I did enjoy myself. As often as 
one comes near a simple human heart, one’s own heart 
finds a little room.” 

Ere she knew, Mercy had said — 

“ And you didn’t find any room with me ? ” 

With the sound of her words her face grew hot, as 
with a furnace-blast, even in the frosty night-air. She 
would have covered what she had said, but only stam- 
mered. Ian turned, and looking at her, said with a 
gentle gravity — 

“You must not be offended with me! I must an- 
swer you truly. — You do not give me room : have you 
not just told me you never longed for any yourself ? ” 

“ One ought to be independent ! ” said Mercy, a little 
nettled. 

“ Are you sure of that ? What is called independ- 
ence may really be want of sympathy. That would 
indicate a kind of loneliness anything but good.” 

“ I wish you would find a less disagreeable companion 
then ! — one that would at least be as good as nobody ! 
I am sorry I don’t know how to give you room. I 
would if I could. Tell me how.” 

Again Ian turned to her : was it possible there were 
tears in her voice? But her black eyes were flashing in 
the starlight ! 

“ Did you ever read Zanoni ? ” he asked. 

“ I never heard of it. What is it ? ” 

“ A romance of Bulwer’s.” 


BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER. 


179 


“ My father won’t let us read anything of Bulwer’s. 
Does he write very wicked books ? ” 

“ The one I speak of,” said Ian, “ is not wicked, 
though it is full of rubbish, and its religion is very 
false.” 

Whether Mercy meant to take her revenge on him 
with consciously bad logic, I am in doubt. 

“ Captain Macruadh ! you astonish me ! A Scotchman 
speak so of religion ! ” 

“ I spoke of the religion in that book. I said it was 
false — which is the same as saying it was not religion.” 
“ Then all religion is not true ! ” 

“ All true religion is true,” said Ian, inclined to laugh 
like one that thought to catch an angel, and had 
clutched a bat ! I was going on to say that, though the 
religion and philosophy of the book were rubbish, the 
story was fundamentally a grand conception. It puz- 
zles me to think how a man could start with such an 
idea, and work it out so well, and yet be so lacking 
both in insight and logic. It is wonderful how much 
of one portion of our nature may be developed along 
with so little of another ! ” 

“ What is the story about ? ” Mercy asked. 

“ What I may call the canvas of it, speaking as if it 
were a picture, is the idea that the whole of space is 
full of life ; that, as the smallest drop of water is 
crowded with monsters of hideous forms and disposi- 
tions, so is what we call space full of living crea- 
tures, — ” 

“ How horrible ! ” 

“ — not all monsters, however. There are among 
them creatures not altogether differing from us, but 
differing much from each other,” — 

“ As much as you and I ? ” 


180 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ — some of them lovely and friendly, others fright- 
ful in their beauty and malignity, — ” 

“ What nonsense ! ” 

“ Why do you call it nonsense ? ” 

“ How could anything beautiful be frightful ? ” 

“ I ought not to have said beautiful. But the fright- 
fulest face I ever saw ought to have been the finest. 
When the lady that owned it spoke to me, I shivered.” 
“ But anyhow the whole thing is nonsense ! ” 

“ How is it nonsense ? ” 

“ Because there are no such creatures.” 

“ How do you know that ? Another may have seen 
them though you and I never did ! ” 

“ You are making game of me ! You think to make 
me believe anything you choose ! ” 

“ Will you tell me something you do believe ? ” 

“ That you may prove immediately that I do not be- 
lieve it ! ” she retorted, with more insight than he had 
expected. “ — You are not very entertaining ! ” 

“ Would you like me to tell you a story then ? ” 

“ Will it be nonsense ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ I should like a little nonsense.” 

“ You are an angel of goodness, and as wise as you 
are lovely ! ” said Ian. 

She turned upon him, and opened wide at him her 
great black eyes, in which were mingled defiance and 
question. 

“ Your reasoning is worthy of your intellect. When 
you dance,” he went on, looking very solemn, “ your 
foot would not bend the neck of a daisy asleep in its 
rosy crown. The west wind of May haunts you with 
its twilight-odors ; and when you waltz, so have I seen 
the waterspout gyrate on the blue floor of the Medit- 


BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER. 


181 


terranean. Your voice is as the harp of Selma; and 
when you look out of your welkin eyes — no ! there I 
am wrong ! Allow me ! — ah, I thought so ! — dark as 
Erebus ! — But what ! ” 

For Mercy, perceiving at last that he was treating 
her like the silliest of small girls, lost her patience, and 
burst into tears. 

“You are dreadfully rude ! ” she sobbed. 

Ian was vexed with himself. 

“ You asked me to talk nonsense to you, Miss Mercy ! 
I attempted to obey you, and have done it stupidly. 
But at least it was absolute nonsense ! Shall I make up 
for it by telling you a pretty story ? ” 

“ Anything, to put away that ! ” answered Mercy, 
trying to smile. 

He began at once, and told her a wonderful tale — 
told first after this fashion by Rob of the Angels, at a 
winter-night gathering of the women, as they carded 
and spun their wool, and reeled their yarn together. 
It was one well-known in the country, but Rob had 
filled it after his fancy with imaginative turns and spir- 
itual hints, inappreciable by the tall child of seventeen 
walking by Ian’s side. There was not among the 
maidens of the poor village one who would not have un- 
derstood it better than she. It took her fancy notwith- 
standing, partly, perhaps, from its unlikeness to any story 
she had ever heard before. Her childhood had been 
starved on the husks' of new fairy-tales, all invention 
and no imagination, than which more unnourishing food 
was never offered to God’s children. 

Here is the story Ian told her under that skyful of 
stars, as Rob of the Angels had dressed it for the clan 
matrons and maidens, altered a little again for the ears 
of the lowland girl. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


THE DOG-KENNEL. 


HERE was once a woman whose husband was well 



JL to do, but he died and left her, and then she sank 
into poverty. She did her best ; but she had a large 
family, and work was hard to find, and hard to do when 
it was found, and hardly paid when it was done. Only 
hearts of grace can understand the struggles of the 
poor — with everything but God against them ! But 
she trusted in God, and said whatever he pleased must 
be right, whether he sent it with his own hand or not. 

“ Now, whether it was that she could not find them 
enough to eat, or that she could not keep them warm 
enough, I do not know ; I do not think it was that they 
had not gladness enough, which is as necessary for 
young things as food and air and sun, I hardly think it, 
for it is wonderful on how little a child can be happy ; 
but, whatever was the cause, they began to die. One 
after the other sickened and lay down, and did not rise 
again ; and for a time her life was just a waiting upon 
death. She would have wanted to die herself, but that 
there was always another to die first ; she had to see 
them all safe home before she dared wish to go herself. 
But at length the last of them was gone, and then when 
she had no more to provide for, the heart of work went 
out of her : where was the good of working for herself ! 
there was no interest in it ! But she knew it was the 
will of God she should work and eat until he chose to 


182 


THE DOG-KENNEL. 


183 


take her back to himself ; so she worked on for her liv- 
ing while she would much rather have worked for her 
dying ; and comforted herself that every day brought 
death a day nearer. Then she fell ill herself, and could 
work no more, and thought God was going to let her 
die, for, able to win her bread no longer, surely she 
was free to lie down and wait for death ! But just as 
she was going to her bed for the last time, she be- 
thought herself that she was bound to give her neigh- 
bor the chance of doing a good deed ; and felt that any 
creature dying at her door without letting her know he 
was in want, would do her a great wrong. She saw it 
was the will of God that she should beg, so put on 
her clothes again, and went out to beg. It was sore 
work, and she said so to the priest. But the priest told 
her she need not mind, for our Lord himself lived by 
the kindness of the women who went about with him. 
They knew he could not make a living for his own 
body and a living for the souls of so many as well, and 
the least they could do was to keep him alive who was 
making them alive. She said that was very true ; but 
he was all the time doing everything for everybody, 
and she was doing nothing for anybody. The priest 
was a wise man, and did not tell her how she had, since 
ever he knew her, been doing the work of God in his 
heart, helping him to believe and trust in God ; so that 
in fact, when he was preaching, she was preaching. He 
did not tell her that, I say, for he was jealous over her 
beauty, and would have Christ’s beloved sheep enter his 
holy kingdom with her wool white, however tom it 
might be. So he left her to think she was nobody at 
all ; and told her that, whether she was worth keeping 
alive or not, whether she was worth begging for or not, 
whether it was a disgrace or an honor to beg, all was 


184 


what’s mine’s mine. 


one, for it was the will of God that she should beg, and 
there was no word more to be said, and no thought 
more to be thought about it. To this she agreed, 
and did beg — enough to keep her alive, and no more. 

“ But at last she saw she must leave that part of the 
country, and go back to the place her husband took her 
from. For the people about her were very poor, and 
she thought it hard on them to have to help a stranger 
like her ; also her own people would want her to bury. 
For you must know that in the clans, marriage was 
thought to be dissolved by death, so far at least as the 
body was concerned ; therefore the body of a dead wife 
was generally carried back to the burial place of her 
own people, there to be gathered to her fathers. So the 
woman set out for her own country, begging her way 
thither. Nor had she any difficulty, for there were not 
a few poor people on her way, and the poor are the 
readiest to help the poor, also to know whether a per- 
son is one that ought to be helped or not. 

“ One night she came to a farm house where a rich 
miserly farmer dwelt. She knew about him, and had 
not meant to stop there, but she was weary, and the 
sun went down as she reached his gate, and she felt as 
if she could go no farther. So she went up to the door 
and knocked, and asked if she could have a night’s 
lodging. The woman who opened to her went and 
asked the farmer. Now the old man did not like hospi- 
tality, and in particular to such as stood most in need of 
it ; he did not enjoy throwing away money ! At the same 
time, however, he was very fond of hearing all the 
country rumors ; and he thought with himself he would 
buy her news with a scrap of what was going, and a 
shake-down at the foot of the wall. So he told his ser- 
vant to bring her in. 


THE DOG-KENNEL. 


185 


“ He received her not unkindly, for he wanted her to 
talk ; and he let her have a share of the supper, such as 
it was. But not until he had asked every question 
about everybody he could think of, and drawn her own 
history from her as well, would he allow her to have 
the rest she so much needed. 

“Now it was a poor house, like most in the country, 
and nearly without partitions. The old man had his 
warm box-bed, and slept on feathers where no draught 
could reach him, and the poor woman had her bed of 
short rumpled straw on the earthen floor at the foot of 
the wall in the coldest corner. Yet the heart of the 
man had been moved by her story, for, without dwell- 
ing on her sufferings, she had been honest in telling it. 
He had indeed, ere he went to sleep, thanked God that 
he was so much better off than she. For if he did not 
think it the duty of the rich man to share with his 
neighbors, he at least thought it his duty to thank God 
for being richer than they. 

“Now it may well seem strange that such a man 
should be privileged to see a vision ; should be the por- 
tion of such a man ; we read in the Bible of a prophet 
who did not even know his duty to an ass, so that the 
ass had to teach it him. And the man alone saw the 
vision ; the woman saw nothing of it. But she did not 
require to see any vision, for she had truth in the in- 
ward parts, which is better than all visions. The vision 
was on this wise — In the middle of the night the man 
came wide awake, and looking out of his bed, saw the 
door open and a light come in, burning like a star, of a 
faint rosy color, unlike any light he had ever before 
seen. Another and another came in, and more yet, un- 
till he counted six of them. They moved near the floor, 
but he could not see clearly what sort of little crea- 


186 


what’s mine’s mine. 


tures they were that were carrying them. They went 
up to the woman’s bed, and slowly walked round it, in 
a hovering kind of a way, stopping, and moving up and 
down, and going on again ; and when they had done 
this three times they went slowly out of the door again, 
stopping for a moment several times as they went. 

“ He fell asleep, and waking not very early, was sur- 
prised to see his guest still on her hard couch — as quiet 
as any rich woman, he said to himself, on her feather 
bed. He woke her, told her he wondered she should 
sleep so far into the morning, and narrated the curious 
vision he had had. ‘ Does not that explain to you,’ 
she said, ‘ how it is that I have slept so long ? Those 
were my dead children you saw come to me. They 
died young, without any sin, and God lets them come 
and comfort their poor sinful mother. I often see them 
in my dreams. If, when I am gone, you will look at 
my bed, you will find every straw laid straight and 
smooth. That is what they were doing last night.’ 
Then she gave him thanks for good fare and good rest, 
and took her way to her own, leaving the farmer better 
pleased with himself than he had been for a long time, 
partly because there had been granted him a vision 
from heaven. 

“ At last the woman died, and was carried by angels 
into Abraham’s bosom. She was now with her own 
people indeed, that is, with God and all the good. The 
old farmer did not know of her death till a long time 
after ; but it was upon the night she died, as near as he 
could then make out, that he dreamed a wonderful 
dream. He never told it to any but the priest from 
whom he sought of comfort when he lay dying ; and the 
priest did nor tell it till after everybody belonging to 
the old man was gone. This was the dream : — 


THE DOG-KENNEL. 


187 


“ He was lying awake in his own bed, as he thought, 
in the dark night, when the poor woman came in at the 
door, having in her hand a wax candle, but not alight. 
He said to her, c You extravagant woman ! where did 
you get that candle ? ’ She answered, 4 It was put into 
my hand when I died, with the word that I was to 
wander till I found a fire at which to light it.’ 4 There ! ’ 
said he, 4 there’s the rested fire ! Blow and get a light,’ 
poor thing ! It shall never be said I refused a body a 
light ! ’ She went to the hearth, and began to blow at 
the smouldering peat ; but for all she kept trying she 
could not light her candle. The old man thought it 
was because she was dead, not because he was dead in sin, 
and losing his patience, cried, 4 Y ou foolish woman ! 
haven’t you wit enough to light a candle ? It’s small 
wonder you came to beggary ! ’ Still she went on try- 
ing, but the more she tried, the blacker grew the peat she 
was blowing at. It would indeed blaze up at her breath, 
but the moment she brought the candle near it to catch 
the flame, it grew black, and each time blacker than be- 
fore. 4 Tut ! give me the candle,’ cried the farmer, 
springing out of bed ; 4 1 will light it for you ! ’ But as 
he stretched out his hand to take it, the woman disap- 
peared, and he saw that the fire was dead out. 4 Here’s 
a fine business ! ’ he said. 4 How am I to get a light ? ’ 
For they were miles from the next house. And with 
that he turned to go back to his bed. When he came 
near it, he saw somebody lying in it. 4 What ! has the 
carline got into my very bed ? ’ he cried, and went to 
drive her out of the bed and out of the house. But 
when he came close, he saw it was himself lying there, 
and at least knew that he was out of the body, if not 
downright dead. The next moment he found himself on 
the moor, following the woman, some distance before 


188 


what’s mine’s mine. 


him, with her unlighted candle still in her hand. He 
walked as fast as he could to get up with her, but could 
not; he called after her, but she did not seem to hear. 

“ When first he set out, he knew every step of the 
ground, but by and by he ceased to know it. The 
moor stretched out endlessly, and the woman walked on 
and on. Without a thought of turning back, he fol- 
lowed. At length he saw a gate, seemingly in the side 
of a hill. The woman knocked, and by the time it 
opened, he was near enough to hear what passed. It 
was a grave and stately, but very happy-looking man 
that opened it, and he knew at once that it was St. Peter. 
When he saw the woman, he stooped and kissed her. 
The same moment a light shone from her, and the old 
man thought her candle was lighted at last ; but pres- 
ently he saw it was her head that gave out the shining. 
And he heard her say, 4 1 pray you, St. Peter, re- 
member the rich tenant of Balmacoy ; he gave me 
shelter one whole night, and would have let me light 
my candle, but I could not.’ St. Peter answered, 4 His fire 
was not fire enough to light your candle, and the bed 
he gave you was of short straw ! ’ 4 True, St. Peter,’ 

said the woman, 4 but he gave me some supper, and it 
is hard for a rich man to be generous ! You may say 
the supper was not very good, but at least it was more 
than a cup of cold water ! ’ 4 Yes, verily ! ’ answered 

the saint, 4 but he did not give it you because you loved 
God, or because you were in need of it, but because he 
wanted to hear your news.’ Then the woman was sad, 
for she could not think of anything more to say for the 
poor old rich man. And St. Peter saw that she was 
sad, and said, 4 But if he dies to-night, he shall have a 
place inside the gate, because you pray for him. He 
shall lie there ! ’ And he pointed to just such a bed of 


THE DOG-KENNEL. 


189 


short crumpled straw as she had lain upon in his house. 
But she said, 4 St Peter, you ought to be ashamed of 
yourself ! Is that the kind of welcome to give a poor 
man ? ’ 4 Where then would he have lain if I had not 

prayed for him ? ’ 4 In the dog-kennel outside there,’ 
answered St. Peter. 4 Oh, then, please, let me go back 
and warn him what comes of loving money ! ’ she 
pleaded. 4 That is not necessary,’ he replied ; 4 the man 
is hearing every word you and I are this moment say- 
ing to each other.’ 4 1 am so glad ! ’ rejoined the woman ; 
4 it will make him repent.’ 4 He will not be a straw 
the better for it ! ’ answered the saint. 4 He thinks now 
that he will do differently, and perhaps when he wakes 
will think so still : but in a day or two he will mock 
at it as a foolish dream. To gather money will seem to 
him common sense, and to lay up treasure in heaven 
nonsense. A bird in the hand will be to him worth ten 
in the heavenly bush. And the end of that will be he 
will not get the straw inside the gate, and there will be 
many worse places than the dog-kennel too good for 
him ! ’ With that he woke. 

44 4 What an odd dream ! ’ he said to himself. 4 1 had 
better mind what I am about ! ’ So he was better that 
day, eating and drinking more freely, and giving more 
to his people. But the rest of the week he was worse 
than ever, trying to save what he had that day spent, 
and so he went on growing worse. When he found 
himself dying, the terror of his dream came upon him, 
and he told all to the priest. But the priest could not 
comfort him.” 

By the time the story was over, to which Mercy had 
listened without a word, they were alone in the great 
starry night, on the side of a hill, with the snow high 
above them, and the heavens above the snow, and the 


190 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


stars above the heavens, and God above and below 
everything. Only Ian felt his presence. Mercy had 
not missed him yet. 

She did not see much in the tale : how could she ? 
It was very odd, she thought, but not very interesting. 
She had expected a tale of clan-feud, or a love-story ! 
Yet the seriousness of her companion in its narration 
had made an impression upon her. 

“ They told me you were an officer ; ” she said, “ but 
I see you are a clergyman! Do you tell stories like 
that from the pulpit ? ” 

“ I am a soldier,” answered Ian, “ not a clergyman. 
But I have heard my father tell such a story from the 
pulpit.” 

Ian imagined himself foiled in his attempt to interest 
the maiden. If he was, it would not be surprising. 
He had not the least desire to commend himself to the 
girl ; and he would not talk rubbish even to a child. 
There is sensible and senseless nonsense, good absurdity 
and bad. 

As Mercy recounted to her sister the story Ian had 
told her, it certainly was silly enough. She had re- 
tained but the withered stalk and leaves ; but the 
strange flower was gone. Christina judged it hardly a 
story for a gentleman to tell a lady. 

They returned almost in silence, to find the table 
laid, a plentiful supper spread, and the company seated. 
After supper came singing of songs, saying of ballads, 
and telling of tales. I know with what incredulity 
many highlanders will read of a merry-making in their 
own country at which no horn went round, no punch- 
bowl was filled and emptied without stint ! But the 
clearer the brain, the better justice is done to the more 
ethereal wine of the soul. Of several of the old songs 


THE DOG-KENNEL. 


191 


Christina begged the tunes, but was disappointed to find 
that, as she could not take them down, so the singers 
of them could not set them down. In the tales she 
found no interest. The hostess sang to her harp, and 
made to revering listeners eloquent music, for her high 
clear tones had not yet lost their sweetness, and she had 
some art to come in aid of her much feeling ; and loud 
murmurs of delight, in the soft strange tongue of the 
songs themselves, followed the profound silence with 
which they were heard ; but Christina wondered what 
there was to applaud. She could not herself sing with- 
out accompaniment, and when she left it was with a re- 
gretful feeling that she had not distinguished herself. 
Naturally, as they went home, the guests from the New 
House had much fun over the queer fashions and pov- 
erty-stricken company, the harp and the bagpipes, the 
horrible haggis, the wild minor-songs, and the unintelli- 
gible stories and jokes ; but the ladies agreed that the 
chief was a splendid fellow, 


CHAPTER XIX. 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 

A MONG the peasantry assembled at the feast, were 
two that had neither danced, nor seated them- 
selves at the long table where all were welcome. Mercy 
wondered what might be the reason of their separation. 
Her first thought was that they must be somehow, she 
could not well imagine how, in lower position than any 
of the rest — had perhaps offended against the law, 
perhaps been in prison, and so the rest would not keep 
company with them ; or perhaps they were beggars who 
did not belong to the clan, and therefore, although fed, 
were not allowed to eat with it ! But she soon saw she 
must be wrong in each conjecture ; for if there was any 
avoiding, it was on the part of the two : every one, it 
was clear, was almost on the alert to wait upon them. 
They seemed indeed rather persons of distinction than 
outcasts ; for it was with something like homage, except 
for a certain coaxing tone in the speech of the mini- 
strants, that they were attended. They had to help 
themselves to nothing ; everything was carried to them. 
Now one, now another, where all were guests and all 
were servants, would rise from the table to offer them 
something, or see what they would choose or might 
be in want of, while they partook with the same dig- 
nity and self-restraint that was to be noted in all. 

The elder was a man about five-and-fifty, tall and 
lean, with a wiry frame, dark grizzled hair, and a 
192 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 


193 


shaven face. His dress, which was in the style of the 
country, was very poor, but decent ; only his plaid was 
large and thick, and bright compared with the rest of 
his apparel : it was a present he had had from his clan 

— some giving the wool, and others the labor in carding, 
dyeing and weaving it. He carried himself like a sol- 
dier — which he had never been, though his father had. 
His eyes were remarkably clear and keen, and the way 
he used them could hardly fail to attract attention. 
Every now and then they would suddenly fix them- 
selves with a gaze of earnest inquiry, which would 
either grow to perception, or presently melt away and 
let his glance go gently roving, ready to receive but 
looking for nothing. His face was very brown and 
healthy, with marked and handsome features. Its ex- 
pression seemed at first a little severe, but soon, to read- 
ing eyes, disclosed patience and tenderness. At the 
same time there was in it a something indescribably un- 
like the other faces present — and indeed his whole per- 
son and carriage were similarly peculiar. Had Mercy, 
however, spent on him a little more attention, the pe- 
culiarity would have explained it. She would have seen 
that, although everybody spoke to him, he never spoke 
in reply — only made signs, sometimes with his lips, 
oftener with hand or head : the man was deaf and dumb. 
But such was the keenness of his observation that he 
understood everything said to him by one he knew, and 
much from the lips of a stranger. 

His companion was a youth whose age it would have 
been difficult to guess. He looked a lad, and was not 
far from thirty. His clothing was much like his father’s 

— poor enough, yet with the air of being a better suit 
than that worn every day. He was very pale and curi- 
ously freckled, with great gray eyes like his father’s, 


194 


what’s mine’s mine. 


which had however an altogether different expression. 
They looked dreamy, and seemed almost careless of 
what passed before them, though now and then a 
quick sharp turn of the head showed him not devoid of 
certain attention. 

The relation between the two was strangely interest- 
ing. Day and night they were inseparable. Because 
the father was deaf, the son gave all his attention to the 
soqndsof the world ; his soul sat in his ears, ever awake, 
ever listening ; while such was his confidence in his 
father’s sight, that he scarcely troubled himself to look 
where he set his feet. His expression also was peculiar, 
partly from this cause, mainly from a deeper. It was a 
far-away look, which a common glance would have 
taken to indicate that he was “not all there.” In a low- 
land parish he would have been regarded as little better 
than a gifted idiot ; in the mountains he was looked 
upon as a seer, one in communion with higher powers. 
Whether his people were of this opinion from being all 
fools together, and therefore unable to know a fool, or 
the lowland authorities would have been right in taking 
charge of him, let him who pleases judge or misjudge 
for himself. What his own thought of him came out in 
the name they gave him : “ Rob of the Angels,” they 
called him. He was nearly a foot shorter than his 
father, and very thin. Some said he looked always 
cold ; but I think that came of the wonderful peace on 
his face, like the quiet of a lake over which lies a thin 
mist. Never was stronger or fuller devotion manifested 
by son to father than by Rob of the Angels to Hec- 
tor of the Stags. His filial love and faith were perfect. 
While they were together, he was in his own calm 
elysium ; when they were apart, which was seldom for 
more than a few minutes, his spirit seemed always wait- 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 


195 


ing. I believe his notions of God his father, and Hec- 
tor his father, were strangely mingled — the more per- 
haps that the two fathers were equally silent. It would 
have been a valuable revelation to some theologians to 
see in those two what love might mean. 

So gentle was Rob of the Angels, that all the women, 
down to the youngest maid-child, gave him a compas- 
sionate, mother-like love. He had lost his mother when 
he was an infant ; the father had brought him up with 
his own hand, and from the moment of his mother’s de- 
parture had scarce let him out of his sight ; but the 
whole woman-remnant of the clan was as a mother to 
the boy. And from the first they had so talked to him 
of his mother, greatly no doubt through the feeling that 
from his father he could learn nothing of her, that now 
his mother seemed to him everywhere : he could not 
see God ; why should not his mother be there though he 
could not see her ! No wonder the man was peaceful. 

Many would be inclined to call the two but poachers 
and vagabonds — vagabonds because they lived in 
houses not quite made with hands, for they had several 
dwellings that were mostly caves — which yet they con- 
trived to make warm and comfortable ; and poachers 
because they lived by the creatures which God scatters 
on his hills for his humans. Let those who inherit or 
purchase, avenge the breach of law ; but let them not 
wonder when those who are disinherited and sold, cry 
out against the breach of higher law ! 

The land here had never, partly from the troubles 
besetting its owners, but more from their regard for the 
poor of the clan, been with any care preserved ; little 
notice was ever taken of what game was killed, or who 
killed it. At the same time any wish of the chief with 
regard to the deer, of which Rob’s father for one knew 

O J 


196 


what’s mine’s mine. 


every antlered head, was rigidly respected. As to the 
parts which became the property of others — the 
boundaries between were not very definite, and sale 
could ill change habits, especially where owners were 
but beginning to bestir themselves about the deer, or 
any of the wild animals called game. Hector and Rob 
led their life with untroubled conscience and easy 
mind. 

In a world of the devil, where the justification of ex- 
istence lies in money on the one side, and work for 
money on the other, there could be no justification of 
the existence of these men ; but this world does not be- 
long to the devil, though it may often seem as if it did, 
and father and son lived and enjoyed life, as in a man- 
ner so to a degree unintelligible to him who, without 
his money and its consolations, would know himself in 
the hell he has not yet recognized. Neither of them 
could read or write ; neither of them had a penny laid 
by for wet weather ; neither of them would leave any 
memory beyond their generation ; the will of neither 
would be laid up in Doctors’ Commons ; neither of the 
two would leave on record a single fact concerning one 
of the animals whose ways and habits they knew better 
than any other man in the highlands ; that they were 
nothing, and worth nothing to anybody — even to them- 
selves, would have been the judgment of most strang- 
ers concerning them ; but God knew what a life of un- 
speakable pleasures it was that he had given them — 
a life the change from which to the life beyond, 'would 
scarce be distracting : neither would find himself much 
out of doors when he died. To Rob of the Angels how 
could Abraham’s bosom feel strange, accustomed to lie 
night after night, star-melted and soft-breathing, or 
snow-ghastly and howling, with his head on the bosom 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 


197 


of Hector of the Stags — an Abraham who could as ill 
do without his Isaac, as his Isaac without him ! 

The father trusted his son’s hearing as implicitly as 
his own sight. When he saw a certain look come on 
his face he would drop on the instant, and crouch as 
still as if he had ears and knew what noise was, watch- 
ing Rob’s face for news of some sound wandering 
through the vast of the night. 

It seemed at times, however, as if either he was not 
quite deaf, or he had some gift that went towards com- 
pensation. To all motion about him he was sensitive as 
no other man. I am afraid to say from how far off the 
solid earth would convey to him the vibration of a 
stag’s footstep. Rob sometimes thought his cheek 
must feel the wind of a sound to which his ear was ir- 
responsive. Beyond a doubt he was occasionally aware 
of the proximity of an animal, and knew what animal it 
was, of which Rob had no intimation. His being, cor- 
poreal and spiritual, seemed to the ceaseless vibrations of 
the great globe, a very seismograph. Often would he 
make his sign to Rob to lay his ear on the ground and 
listen, when no indication had reached the latter. I 
suspect the exceptional development in him of some 
sense rudimentary in us all. 

He had the keenest eyes in Glenruadh, and was a 
dead shot. Even the chief was not his equal. Yet he 
never stalked a deer, never killed anything for mere 
sport. I am not certain he never had, but for Rob of 
the Angels, he had the deep-rooted feeling of his chief 
in regard to the animals. What they wanted for food, 
they would kill ; but it was not much they needed, for 
seldom can two men have lived on less, and they had 
positively not a greed of any kind between them. If 
their necessity was meal or potatoes, would carry 


198 


what’s mine’s mine. 


grouse or hares clown the glen, or arrange with some 
farmer’s wife, perhaps Mrs. Macruadh herself, for the 
haunches of a doe ; but they never killed from pleasure 
in killing. Of creatures destructive to game, they killed 
enough to do far more than make up for all the game 
they took; and for the skins of ermine and stoat and 
fox and otter they could always get money’s worth ; 
money itself they never sought or had. If the little 
birds be regarded as earning the fruit and seed they de- 
vour by the grubs and slugs they destroy, then Hector 
of the Stags and Hob of the Angels also thoroughly 
earned their food. 

When a trustworthy messenger was wanted, and Rob 
was within reach, he was sure to be employed. But not 
even then were his father and he quite parted. Hector 
would shoulder his gun, and follow in the track of his 
fleet-footed son till he met him returning. 

For what was life to Hector but to be with Rob ! 
Was his Mary’s son to go about the world unattended ! 
He had a yet stronger feeling than any of the clan that 
his son was not of the common race of mortals. To 
Hector also, after their own fashion, would Rob of the 
Angels tell the tales that gave rise to the name his 
clanspeople gave him — wonderful tales of the high 
mountain-nights, the actors in them for the most part 
angels. Whether Rob believed he had intercourse with 
such beings, heard them speak, and saw them do the 
things he reported, I cannot tell ; it may be that, like 
any other poet of good things, he but saw and believed 
the things his tales meant, the things with which he 
represented the angels as dealing, and concerning 
which he told their sayings. To the eyes of those who 
knew him, Rob seemed just the sort of person with 
whom the angels might be well pleased to hold con- 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 


199 


verse : was he not simplicity itself, truth, generosity, 
helpfulness ? Dicl he not when a child, all but lose his 
life in the rescue of an idiot from the swollen burn? 
Did he not, when a boy, fight a great golden eagle on 
its nest, thinking to deliver the lamb it had carried 
away ? Knowing his father in want of a new bonnet, 
did not Rob with his bare hands seize an otter at the 
mouth of its hole, and carry it home, laughing merrily 
over the wounds it had given him ? 

His voice had in it a strangely peculiar tone, making 
it seem not of this wofld. Especially after he had been 
talking for some time, it would appear to come from far 
away, not from the lips of the man looking you in the 
face. 

It was wonderful with what solemnity of speech, and 
purity of form he would tell his tales. So much in 
solitude with his dumb father, his speech might well be 
unlike the speech of other men ; but whence the impres- 
sion of cultivation it produced ? 

When the Christmas party broke up, most of the 
guests took the road towards the village, the chief and 
his brother accompanying them part of the way. Of 
these were Rob and his father, walking hand in hand, 
Hector looking straight before him, Rob gazingup into 
the heavens, as if holding counsel with the stars. 

“ Are you seeing any angels, Rob ? ” asked a gentle 
girl of about ten. 

“Well, and I’m not sure,” answered Rob of the 
Angels. 

“ Sure you can tell whether you see anything ! ” 

“ Oh, yes, I see ! but it is not easy to tell what will be 
an angel and what will not. There’s so much all blue 
up there, it might be full of angels and none of us see 
one of them ! ” 


200 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Do tell us what you see, Rob, clear Rob,” said the 
girl. 

“ Well, and I will tell you. I think I see many heads 
close together, talking.” 

“ And can you hear what they will be saying ? ” 

“ Some of it.” 

“ Tell me, do tell me — some — just a little.” 

“ Well, then, they are saying, one to the other — not 
very plain, but I can hear — they are saying, ‘ I won- 
der when people will be good ! It would be so easy, if 
only they would mean it, and begin when they are lit- 
tle ! ’ That’s what they are saying as they look down on 
us walking along.” 

“ That will be good advice, Rob ! ” said one of the 
women. 

Rob turned to her. 

“ And,” he resumed, “ they are saying now — at least 
that is what it sounds to me — 4 1 wish women were as 
good as they were when they were little girls ! ’ ” 

“Now I know they are not saying that ! ” remarked 
the woman. “ How should the angels trouble them- 
selves about us ! Rob, dear, confess you are making it 
up, because the child would be asking you.” 

Rob made no answer, but some saw him smile a curi- 
ous smile. Rob would never defend anything he had 
said, or dispute anything another said. After a mo- 
ment or two, he spoke again. 

“ Shall I be telling you what I heard them saying to 
each other this last night of all?” he asked. 

“ Yes, do, do ! ” 

“ It was upon Dorrachbeg ; and there were two of 
them. They were sitting together in the moon — in 
the correi over the village. I was lying in a bush near 
them, for I could not sleep, and came out, and the 


BOB OF TIIE ANGELS. 


201 


night was not cold. Now I would never be so bad- 
mannered as to listen where persons did not want me to 
hear.” 

44 What were they like, Rob, dear ? ” interrupted the 
girl. 

“ That does not matter much,” answered Rob ; 44 but 
they were white, and their eyes not so white, but 
brighter ; for so many sad things go in at their eyes 
when they come down to the earth, that it makes them 
dark.” 

44 How could they be brighter and darker both at 
once ? ” asked the girl, very pertinently. 

“ I will tell you,” answered Rob. “ The dark things 
that go in at their eyes, they have to burn them in the 
fire of faith ; and it is the fire of that burning that 
makes their eyes bright ; it is the fire of their faith 
burning up the sad things they see.” 

44 Oh, yes ! I understand now ! ” said the girl. 44 And 
what were their clothes like, Rob ? ” 

44 When you see the angels, you don’t think much 
about their clothes.” 

44 And what were they saying ? ” 

44 1 spoke first — the moment I saw them, for I was 
not sure they knew that I was there. I said, 4 1 am here, 
gentlemen.’ 4 Yes, we know that,’ they answered. 
4 Are you far from home, gentlemen ? ’ I asked. 4 It is 
all one for that ! ’ they answered. 4 Well,’ said I, 4 it 
is true, gentlemen, for you seem as much at home here 
on the side of Dorrachbeg, as if it was a hill in para- 
dise ! ’ 4 And how do you know it is not ? ’ said they. 

4 Because I see people do upon it as they would not in 
paradise,’ I answered. 4 Ah ! ’ said one of them, 4 the 
hill may be in paradise, and the people not ! But you 
cannot understand these things ! ’ 4 1 think I do,’ I 


202 


what’s mine’s mine. 


said ; 4 but surely, if you did let them know they were 
on a hill in paradise, they would not do as they do ! ’ 

4 It would be no use telling them,’ said he , 4 but, oh, how 
they spoil the house ! ’ 4 Are the red deer, and the 
hares, and the birds in paradise?’ I asked. 4 Certain 
sure ! ’ he answered. 4 Do they know it ! ’ said I. 

4 No, it is not necessary for them ; but they will know 
it one day.’ ‘You do not mind your little brother 
asking you questions?’ I said. 4 Ask a hundred, if 
you will, little brother,’ he replied. 4 Then tell me 
why you are down here to-night ? ’ 4 My friend and 

I came out for a walk, and we thought we would look 
to see when the village down there will have to be 
reaped.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I said. 4 You cannot 
see what we see,’ they answered ; 4 but a human place is 
like a flower, or a field of corn, and grows ripe, or 
won’t grow ripe, and then some of us up there have to 
sharpen our sickles.’ 4 What ! ’ said I, for a great fear 
came upon me, ‘they are not wicked people down there ! ’ 

4 No, not very wicked, but slow and dull.’ Then I could 
say nothing more for a while, and they did not speak 
either, but sat looking before them. 4 Can you go and 
come as you please ? ’ I asked at length. 4 Yes, just as 
we are sent,’ they answered. 4 Would you not like 
better to go and come of yourselves, as my father and I 
do ? ’ I said. 4 No, answered both of them, and something 
in their one voice almost frightened me; 4 it is better 
than everything to go where we are sent. If we had to 
go and come at our own will, we should be miserable, for 
we do not love our own will ! ’ ‘Not love your own 
will ? ’ 4 No, not at all ! ’ 4 Why ? ’ 4 Because there is one 
— oh, ever so much better ! When you and your 
father are quite good, you will not be left to go and 
come at your own will any more than we are.’ And I 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 


203 


cried out, and said, 4 Ob, dear angel ! you frighten me ! 5 
And he said, 4 That is because you are only a man, and 

not a ’ Now I am not sure of the word he said 

next ; but I think it was Christian / and I do not quite 
know what the word meant.” 

“ Oh, Rob, dear ! everybody knows that ! ” exclaimed 
the girl. 

But Rob said no more. 

While he was talking, Alister had come up behind 
him, with Annie of the shop, and he said — 

“ Rob, my friend, I know what you mean, and I 
want to hear the rest of it : what did the angels say 
next ? ” 

44 They said,” answered Rob, “ 4 Was it your will set 
you on this beautiful hill, with all these things to love, 
with such air to breathe, such a father as you’ve got, and 
such grand deer about you ? ’ 4 No,’ I answered. 4 Then,’ 
said the angel, 4 there must be a better will than yours, 
for you would never have even thought of such things ! ’ 
4 How could I, when I wasn’t made ? ’ said I. 4 There it 
is ! ’ he returned, and said no more. I looked up, and 
the moon was shining, and there were no angels on the 
stone. But a little w T ay off was my father, come out to 
see what had become of me.” 

“Now, did you really see and hear all that, Rob?” 
said Alister. 

Rob smiled a beautiful smile — with something in it 
common people would call idiotic — stopped and turned, 
took the chief’s hand, and carried it to his.lips ; but not 
a word more would he speak, and soon they came 
where the path of the two turned away over the hill. 

44 Will you not come and sleep at our house ? ” said 
one of the company. 

But they two made kindly excuse. 


204 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ The hill-side would miss us ; we are expected home ! ” 
said Rob — and away they climbed to their hut, a hol- 
low in a limestone rock, with a front wall of turf, there 
to sleep side by side till the morning came, or, as Rob 
would have said, “till the wind of the sun woke them.” 

Rob of the Angels made songs, and would sing one 
sometimes; but they were in Gaelic, and the more 
poetic a thing, the more inadequate at least, if not 
stupid, is its translation. 

He had all the old legends of the country in his head, 
and many stories of ghosts and of the second sight. 
These stories he would tell exactly as he had heard 
them, showing he believed every word of them ; but 
with such of the legends as were plainly no other than 
poetic inventions, he would take what liberties he 
pleased — and they lost nothing by it ; for he not only 
gave them touches of fresh interest, but sent glimmer- 
ing through them hints of something higher, of which 
ordinary natures perceived nothing, while others were 
dimly aware of a loftier intent : according to his listen- 
ers was their hearing. In Rob’s stories, as in all the 
finer work of genius, a man would find as much as, and 
and no more than, he was capable of. Ian’s opinion of 
Rob was even higher than Alister’s. 

“ What do you think, Ian, of the stories Rob of the 
Angels tells ? ” asked Alister, as they walked home. 

“ That the Lord has chosen the weak things of the 
world to confound the mighty,” answered Ian. 

“Tut! Rob confounds nobody.” 

“ He confounds me,” returned Ian. 

“ Does he believe what he tells ? ” 

“ He believes all of it that is to be believed.” 

“ You are as bad as he ! ” rejoined Alister. “ There 
is no telling, sometimes, what you mean ! ” 


BOB OF THE ANGELS. 


205 


“ Tell me this, Alister : can a thing be believed that 
is not true?” 

“ Yes, certainly ! ” 

“ I say, no. Can you eat that which is not bread ? ” 

“ I have seen a poor fellow gnawing a stick for 
hunger ! ” answered Alister. 

“Yes, gnawing! but gnawing is not eating. Did 
the poor fellow eat the stick ? That is just it ! Many 
a man will gnaw at a lie all his life, and perish of want. 
I mean by lie, of course, the real lie — a thing which is 
in its nature false. He may gnaw at it, he may even 
swallow it, but I deny that he can believe it. There is 
not that in it which can be believed ; at most it can 
but be supposed to be true. Belief is another thing. 
Truth is alone the correlate of belief, just as air is for 
the lungs, just as color is for the sight. A lie can no 
more be believed than carbonic acid can be breathed. 
It goes into the lungs, true, and a lie goes into the mind, 
but both kill ; the one is not breathed, the other is not 
believed. The thing that is not true cannot find its way 
to the home of faith ; if it could, it would be at once 
rejected with a loathing beyond utterance ; to a pure 
soul, which alone can believe, nothing is so loathsome 
as a pretence of truth. A lie is a pretended truth. If 
there were no truth there could be no lies. As the 
devil upon God, the very being of a lie depends on that 
whose opposite and enemy it is. But tell me, Alister, 
do you believe the parables of our Lord ? ” 

“ With all my heart.” 

“ Was there any real person in our Lord’s mind when 
he told that one about the unjust judge?” 

“ I suppose not ; but there were doubtless many such.” 

“ Many who would listen to a poor woman because 
she plagued them ? ” 


206 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Well, it does not matter ; what the story teaches is 
true, and that was what he wanted believed.” 

“Just so. The truth in the parables is what they 
mean, not what they say ; and so it is, I think, with 
Iiob of the Angels’ stories. He believes all that can be 
believed of them. At the same time, to a mind so sim- 
ple, the spirit of God must have freer entrance than to 
ours — perhaps even teaches the man by what we call 
the man's own words. His words may go before his 
ideas — his higher ideas at least — his ideas follow 
after his words. As the half-thoughts pass through his 
mind — who can say how much generated by himself, 
how much directly suggested by the eternal thought in 
which his spirit lives and breathes ! — he drinks and is 
refreshed. I am convinced that nowhere so much as in 
the highest knowledge of all — what the people above 
count knowledge — will the fulfilment of the saying of 
our Lord, “ Many first shall be last, and the last first,” 
cause astonishment ; that a man who has been leader of 
the age’s opinion, may be immeasurably behind another 
whom he would have shut up in a madhouse. Depend 
upon it, things go on in the soul of that Rob of the 
Angels which the angels whether they come to talk 
with him or not, would gladly look into. Of such as he 
the angels may one day be the pupils. 

A silence followed. 

“Do you think the young ladies of the New House 
could understand Rob of the Angels, Ian ? ” at length 
asked Alister. 

“Not a bit. I tried the younger, and she is the best. 
— They could if they would wake up.” 

“ You might say that of anybody ! ” 

“Yes; but there is this among other differences — 
that some people do not wake up, because they want a 


ROB OF THE ANGELS. 


207 


new brain first, such as they will get when they die, 
perhaps ; while others do not wake up, because their 
whole education has been a rocking of them to sleep. 
And there is this difference between the girls, that the 
one is full of herself, and the other is not. The one has 
a close, the other an open mind.” 

“ And yet,” said Alister, “ if they heard you say so, 
the open mind would imagine itself the close, and the 
close never doubt it was the open ! ” 


CHAPTER XX. 


AT THE NEW HOUSE, 


HE ladies of the New House were not a little sur- 



prised, the next day, when, as they sat waiting 
their guests, the door of the drawing-room opened, and 
they saw the young highlanders enter in ordinary even- 
ing dress. The plough-driving laird himself looked to 
Christina very much like her patterns of Grosvenor- 
square. It was long since he had worn his dress-coat, 
and it was certainly a little small for his more fully de- 
veloped frame, but he carried himself as straight as a 
rush, and was nowise embarrassed with hands or feet. 
His hands were brown and large, but they were well 
shaped, and not ashamed of themselves, being as clean 
as his heart. Out of his hazel eyes, looking in the 
candle-light, nearly as dark as Mercy’s, went an occa- 
sional glance which an emergency might at once develop 
into a look of command. 

For Ian, he would have attracted attention any- 
where, if only from his look of quiet unself ness, and the 
invariable grace of the movement that broke his 
marked repose ; but his entertainers would doubtless 
have honored him more had they understood that his 
manner was just the same and himself as much at home 
in the grandest court of Europe. 

The elder ladies got on together pretty well. The 
widow of the chief tried to explain to her hostess the 
condition of the country and its people ; the latter, 


208 


AT THE NEW HOUSE. 


209 


though knowing little and caring less about relations 
beyond those of the family and social circle, nor feeling 
any purely human responsibility, was yet interested 
enough to be able to seem more interested than she 
was ; while her sweet smile and sweet manners were 
very pleasing to one who seldom now had the oppor- 
tunity of meeting a woman so much on her own level. 

The gentlemen, too, were tolerably comfortable to- 
gether. Both Alister and Ian had plenty of talk and 
anecdote. The latter pleased the ladies with descrip- 
tions of northern ways and dresses and manners — per- 
haps yet more with what pleased the men also, tales of 
wolf and bear-shooting. But it seemed odd that, when 
the talk turned upon the home-shooting called sport, 
both Alister and Ian should sit in unsmiling silence. 

There was in Ian a certain playfulness, a restrained 
merriment, which made Mercy doubt her ears after his 
seriousness of the night before. Life seemed to flash 
from him on all sides, occasionally in a keen stroke of 
wit, oftener in a humorous presentation of things. 
ITis brother alone could see how he would check the 
witticism on his very lips lest it should hurt. It was in 
virtue of his tenderness towards everything that had 
life that he was able to give such narratives of what he 
had seen, such descriptions of persons he had met. 
When he told a story, it was with such quiet participar 
tion, manifest in the gleam of his gray eyes, in the 
smile that hovered like the very soul of Psyche about 
his lips, that his hearers enjoyed the telling more than 
the tale. Even the chief listened with eagerness to 
every word that fell from his brother. 

The ladies took note that, while the manners of the 
laird and his mother were in a measure old-fashioned, 
those of Ian were of the latest : with social custom, in 


210 


wpiat’s mine’s mine. 


its flow of change, he seemed at home. But his ease 
never for a moment degenerated into the free-and-easy, 
the dry rot of manners ; there was a stateliness in him 
that dominated the ease, and a courtesy that would not 
permit friendliness to fall into premature familiarity. 
He was at ease with his fellows because he respected 
them, and courteous because he loved them. 

The ladies withdrew, and with their departure came 
the time that tests the man whether he be in truth a 
gentleman. In the presence of women the polish that 
is not revelation but concealment preserves itself only 
to vanish with them. How would not some women 
stand aghast to hear but a specimen of the talk of 
their heroes at such a time ! 

It had been remarked throughout the dinner that the 
highlanders took no wine ; but it was supposed they 
were reserving their powers. When they now passed 
decanter and bottle and jug without filling their glasses, 
it gave offence to the very soul of Mr. Peregrine 
Palmer. The bettered custom of the present day had 
not then made progress enough to affect his table ; he 
was not only fond of a glass of good wine, but had the 
ambition of the cellar largely developed ; he would fain 
be held a connoisseur in wines, and kept up a good 
stock of distinguished vintages, from which he had 
brought of such to Glenruadh as would best bear the 
carriage. Having no aspiration, there was room in him 
for any number of petty ambitions ; and it vexed him 
not to reap the harvest of recognition. “ But of course,” 
he said to himself, “no highlander understands any- 
thing but whisky ! ” 

“You don’t mean you’re a teetotaler, Macruadh ! ” 

“No,” answered the chief; “I do not call myself 
one ; but I never drink anything strong.” 


AT THE NEW HOUSE. 


211 


“ Not on Christmas-day ? Of course you make an ex- 
ception at times ; and if at anytime, why not on the 
merriest day of the year ? You are under no pledge ! ” 
“If that were a reason,” returned Alister, laughing, 
“ it would rather be one for becoming pledged, imme- 
diately.” 

“ Well, you surprise me ! And highlanders too ! I 
thought better of all highlanders ; they have the repu- 
tation of good men at the bottle! You make me sorry 
to have brought my wine where it meets with no con- 
sideration. — Mr. Ian, you are a man of the world : you 
will not refuse to pledge me ? ” 

“ I must, Mr. Palmer ! The fact is, my brother and 
I have seen so much evil arising from the drinking 
habits of the country, which always gets worse in a time 
of depression, that we dare not give in to them. My 
father, who was clergyman of the parish before he be- 
came head of the clan, was of the same mind before us, 
and brought us up not to drink. Throughout a whole 
Siberian winter I kept the rule.” 

“ And got frost-bitten for your pains ? ” 

“ And found myself nothing the worse.” 

“ It’s mighty good of you, no doubt ! ” said the host, 
with a curl of his shaven lip. 

“You can hardly call that good which does not in- 
volve any self-denial,” remarked Alister. 

“Well,” said Mr. Peregrine Palmer, “what is the 
world coming to ? All the pith is leaking out of our 
young men. In another generation we shall have 
neither soldiers, nor sailors nor statesmen ! ” 

“ On what do you found such a sad conclusion ? ” in- 
quired Ian. 

“On the growth of asceticism in the young men. 
Believe me, it is necessary to manhood that men when 


212 


what’s mine’s mine. 


they are young should drink a little, and gamble a lit- 
tle, and sow a few wild oats — as necessary as that a 
nation should found itself by the law of the strongest. 
ITow else can we look for the moderation to follow with 
responsibilities ? The vices that are more than excusa- 
ble in the young, are very properly denied to the mar- 
ried man ; the law for him is not the same as for the 
young man. I do not plead for license, you see ; but it 
will never do for young men to turn ascetics ! Let the 
clergy do as they please ; they are hardly to be counted 
men, at least their calling is not a manly one ! Depend 
upon it, young men who do not follow the dictates of 
nature — while they are young, I mean — will never 
make any mark in the world ! They dry up like a nut, 
brain and all, and have neither spirit, nor wit, nor force 
of any kind. Nature knows best ! When I was a 
young man, ” 

“ Pray spare us confession, Mr. Palmer,” said Ian. 
“ In our case your doctrine does not enter willing ears, 
and 1 should be sorry anything we might feel com- 
pelled to say, should have the appearance of person- 
ality.” 

“ Do you suppose I should heed anything you said ? ” 
■cried the host, betraying the bad blood in his breeding. 
“ Is it manners here to prevent a man from speaking his 
mind at his own table ? I say a saint is not a man ! A 
fellow that will neither look at a woman nor drink his 
glass, is not cut out for man’s work in the world ! ” 

Like a sledge-hammer came the fist of the laird on 
the table, that the crystal danced and rang. 

“ My God ! ” he exclaimed, and rose in hugest in- 
dignation. 

Ian laid his hand on his arm, and he sat down again. 

“ There may be some misunderstanding, Alister,” 


AT THE NEW HOUSE. 


213 


said Ian, “between us and our host! — Pray, Mr. 
Palmer, let us understand each other : do you believe 
God made woman to be the slave of man ? Can you 
believe he ever made a woman that she might be dis- 
honored ? — that a man might caress and despise her ? ” 

“ 1 know nothing about God’s intentions ; all I say 
is, we must obey the laws of our nature.” 

u Is conscience then not a law of our nature ? Is it not 
even on the level of our instincts ? Must not the lower 
laws be subject to the higher ? It is a law — for ever 
broken, yet eternal — that a man is his brother’s keeper : 
still more must he be his sister’s keeper. Therein is 
involved all civilization, all national as well as individ- 
ual growth.” 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer smiled a contemptuous smile. 
The other young men exchanged glances that seemed to 
say, “ The governor knows what is what ! ” 

“ Such may be the popular feeling in this out-of-the- 
way spot,” said Mr. Peregrine Palmer, “ and no doubt it 
is very praiseworthy, but the world is not' of your 
opinion, gentlemen.” 

« The world has got to come to our opinion,” said 
the laird — at which the young men of the house broke 
into a laugh. / 

“ May we join the ladies ? ” said Ian, rising. 

“ By all means,” answered the host, with a laugh 
meant to be good-humored ; “ they are the fittest com- 
pany for you.” 

As the brothers went up the stair, they heard their 
host again holding forth ; but they would not have been 
much edified by the slight change of front he had made, 
in order to impress on the young men the necessity of 
moderation in their pleasures. 

There are two opposite classes related by a like un- 


214 


what’s mine’s mine. 


belief — those who will not believe in the existence of 
the good of which they have apprehended no approxi- 
mate instance, and those who will not believe in the ex- 
istence of similar evil. I tell the one class, there are 
men who would cast their very being from them rather 
than be such as they ; and the other that because they 
shut their eyes, they must not think to make me shut my 
mouth. There are multitudes delicate as they, who are 
compelled to meet evil face to face, and fight with it the 
sternest of battles : on their side may I be found ! 
What the Lord knew and recognized, I will know and 
recognize too, be shocked who may. I spare them, how- 
ever, any more of the talk at that dinner-table. Only 
let them take heed lest their refinement involve a very 
bad selfishness. Cursed be the evil thing, not ignored ! 
Mrs. Palmer, sweet-smiled and clear-eyed, never showed^ 
the least indignation at her husband’s doctrines. I fear 
she was devoid of indignation on behalf of others. 
Very far are such from understanding the ways of the 
all-pardoning, all-punishing Father ! 

The three from the cottage were half-way home ere 
the gentlemen of the New House rose from their wine. 
Then first the mother sought an explanation of the 
early departure they had suggested. 

“ Something went wrong, sons : what was it ? ” she 
said. 

“ T don’t like the men, mother ; nor does Ian,” said 
Alister gloomily. 

“ Take care you are not unjust! ” she replied. 

“ You would not have liked Mr. Palmer’s doctrine 
any better than we did, mother.” 

“ What was it ! ” 

“ We would rather not tell you.” 

“ It was not fit for a woman to hear.” 


AT THE NEW HOUSE. 


215 


“ Then do not tell me. I trust you to defend 
women.” 

“ In God’s name we will ! ” said Alister. 

“ There is no occasion for an oath, Alister ! ” said his 
mother. 

“ Alister meant it very solemnly ! ” said Ian. 

“ Yes ; but it was not necessary — least of all to me. 
The name of our Lord God should lie a precious jewel 
in the cabinet of our hearts, to be taken out only at 
great times, and with loving awe.” 

“ I shall be careful, mother,” answered Alister ; “ but 
when things make me sorry, or glad, or angry, I always 
think of God first ! ” 

“ I understand you ; but I fear taking the name of 
God in vain.” 

“ It shall not be in vain, mother ! ” said the laird. 

“Must it be a breach with our new neighbors?” 
asked the mother. 

“ It will depend on them. The thing began because 
we would not drink wine.” 

“ You did not make any remark? ” 

“ Not until our host’s remarks called for our reasons. 
By the way, I should like to know how the man made 
his money/’ 


CHAPTER XXI. 


THE BROTHERS, 


VENTS, then, because of the deeper things whence 



they came, seemed sorely against any cordial 
approach of the old and the new houses of Glenruadh. 
But there was a sacred enemy within the stronghold of 
Mr. Peregrine Palmer, and that enemy forbade him to 
break with the young highlanders notwithstanding the 
downright mode in which they had expressed their dif- 
ference with him : he felt, without knowing it, ashamed 
of the things he had uttered : they were not such as he 
would wish proclaimed from the house-tops out of the 
midst of which rose heavenward the spire of the church 
he had built : neither did the fact that he would have 
no man be wicked on Sundays, make him feel quite 
right in urging young men to their swing on other 


days. 


Christian and Sercombe could not but admire the 
straightforwardness of the brothers ; their convention- 
ality could not prevent them from feeling the dignity 
with which they acted on their convictions. The 
quixotic young fellows ought not to be cut for their 
behavior ! They could not court their society, but 
would treat them with consideration! Things could 
not well happen to bring them into much proximity ! 

What had taken place could not definitely influence 
the ideas, feelings, or opinions of the young ladies. 
Their father would sooner have had his hand cut off 


216 


THE BROTHERS. 


217 


than any word said over that fuliginous desert reach 
the ears of his daughters. ( Is it not an absolute dam- 
nation of certain evil principles that many men would 
be flayed alive rather than let those they love know that 
they hold them ? But see the selfishness of the same 
men ! They look with scorn on the women they have 
done their part to degrade, but not an impure breath 
must reach the ears of his children! Another man’s, 
especially if he be a poor man, may go to the devil! 

Mr. Palmer did, however, communicate something of 
the conversation to his wife ; and although she had 
neither the spirit, nor the insight, nor the active purity, 
to tell him he was in the wrong, she did not like the 
young highlanders the worse. She even thought it a 
pity the world should have been so made that they 
could not be in the right ! 

But it is wonderful how a bird of the air will carry 
a matter, and some vaguest impressions of what had 
passed did reach the minds of the older girls — possibly 
from hints, supposed unintelligible, passing between 
Mr. Sercombe and Christian : something in the social 
opinions of the two highlanders made them differ much 
from those prevailing in their section of society ! Now 
even Mercy had not escaped some notion of things of 
which the air about her was full ; and she felt the glow 
of a conscious attraction towards men — somehow, she 
did not know how — like old-fashioned knights errant 
in their relations to women. 

There were not many grouse, and the labor in shoot- 
ing them was hard. Neither had the young men suc- 
cess in the way of deer-stalking, and the time not 
unfrequently lay heavy on their hands. They were of 
those who are most aware of well-being when they are 
killing or at least hurting some other of God’s creatures. 


218 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Christian was of the sort ready to talk rubbish, and 
even rude rubbish, to any pretty barmaid, and Sercombe 
was at his ease with him. The latter had begun again 
to plague Annie of the shop with his visits, firmly be- 
lieving that, however different she might seem, and 
however ignorance might have preserved the simplicity 
of her manners, she was, as he put it, “ like all the rest.” 
Christian went with him occasionally, and Annie was 
much annoyed by their appearing when they wanted 
nothing, and talking to her who had no desire to talk 
to them. The behavior to which she was accustomed 
in the chief and Ian, made her feel strongly the differ- 
ence of these men, but she did not see how of herself to 
get rid of them. She would oftener have called her 
mother but that she suffered from rheumatism, and the 
draughts in the shop were dangerous to her. Were she 
to mention the thing in the village, it would rouse the 
men, and she was, besides, not willing to acknowledge 
herself unequal to her own protection. She resolved 
to lay the matter before the chief : he would know how 
to deal with them ! 

For this purpose she sought him one afternoon at the 
castle, as they styled the cottage and its precincts, but 
found neither him nor Ian, to whom in her chief’s ab- 
sence she would have spoken. 

The attachment between the brothers was unusual 
both in kind and degree. Alister regarded Ian as his 
better self, through whom to rise above himself ; Ian 
looked up to his brother as the head of the family, unit- 
ing in himself all ancestral claims, the representative of 
an ordered and harmonious commonwealth. He saw in 
Alister virtues and powers he did not recognize in him- 
self ; and his love blossomed into the deeper devotion 
that he only had been sent to college : he was bound to 


THE BROTHERS. 


219 


share with him what he had learned there. So Alister 
learned more through Ian than he would have learned 
at the best college in the world. For Ian was a born 
teacher, and found intensest delight/ not in imparting 
knowledge — that is a comparatively poor thing — but 
in leading a mind up to see what it was before in- 
capable of seeing. ^ It was part of the same gift that 
he always knew when he had not succeeded. In Alister 
he found a wonderful docility — crossed indeed with a 
great pride, against which he fought sturdily. 

It is not a good sign of any age that it should find it 
hard to believe in such simplicity and purity as that of 
these young men ; it is perhaps even a worse sign of 
our own that we should find it difficult to believe in 
such love between men. f I am sure of this, that a man 
incapable of loving another man with hearty devotion, 
cannot be capable of loving a woman as a woman ought 
to be loved. From each other these two kept positively 
nothing secret. 

Alister had a great love of music, which however had 
had little development except from the study of the 
violin, with the assistance of a certain poor enough per- 
former in the village, and what criticism his brother 
could afford him, who, not himself a player on any in- 
strument, had heard much good music. But Alister 
was sorely hampered by the fact that his mother could 
not bear to hear the sound of his instrument. The late 
chief was one of the few clergymen who played the 
violin ; and at the first wail of the old instrument in the 
hands of her son, his widow was seized with such a pas- 
sion of weeping, that Alister took the utmost care she 
should never hear it again, always carrying it to some 
place too remote for the farthest-travelling tones to 
reach her. But this was not easy, for sound will travel 


220 


what’s mine’s mine. 


very far among the hills. At times he would take it 
to the room behind Annie’s shop, then at times to the 
hut occupied by Hector of the Stags; there at least 
he would not excruciate his host, and Rob of the 
Angels would endure anything for his chief. The place 
which he most preferred was too distant to be often 
visited ; but there, soon after Christmas, the brothers 
resolved to have a day together, a long talk, and a con- 
ference with the violin. One clear frosty morning in 
January, they set out, provided for a night and two 
days. 

The place was upon an upland pasture-ground, yet in 
their possession : no farm was complete without a range 
in some high valley for the sheep and cattle in summer. 
On the north of this valley rose a bare hill-top, whose 
crest was a limestone rock, rising from the heather 
about twenty feet. Every summer of their boyhood, 
they had spent weeks with the shepherds at the foot of 
this hill, and upon its sides, and one day discovered in 
the rock a little cave or hollow, to which thereafter 
they would often take their food, and one or more of 
the books they had brought from home. There they 
would read the English Ossian together, troubled by no 
ignorant unbelief concerning it. There also they would 
make Gaelic songs together, in which Alister excelled, 
while Ian would do better than he in English, whose 
requirements in the matter of rime are more severe. 
When Ian was at home in the university-vacations, they 
were fonder than ever of going to the hill. There Ian 
would pour out to Alister of the fulness of his gathered 
knowledge, and there and then they made their first ac- 
quaintance with Shakspere. Ian had bought some dozen 
of his plays, in smallest compass and cleanest type at a 
penny a piece. II 0W they revelled in them the long 


THE BROTHERS. 


221 


summer evenings! Ian had bought also, in a small 
thick volume, the poems of Shelley: these gave them 
not only large delight, but much to talk about, for they 
were quite capable of encountering his vague philosophy. 
Then they had their Euclid and Virgil ; and they even 
tried their mental teeth upon Dante, but found the 
Commedia without notes too hard a nut for them. 
Every fresh spring, Ian brought with him fresh books, 
and these they read in their cave. But I must not for- 
get the cave itself, which also shared in the progress of 
the troglodytes. 

The same week in which they first ate and read in 
it, they conceived and began to execute the idea of de- 
veloping the hollow into a house. Foraging in their 
father’s little library for mental pabulum, they had 
come upon Belzoni’s quarto, and had read, with the 
avidity of imaginative boys, the tale of his discoveries, 
taking especial delight in his explorations of the tombs 
of the kings in the rocks of Beban el Malook : these it 
was that now suggested excavation. 

They found serviceable tools about the place at home, 
and the rock was by no means of the hardest ; not a 
summer, for the last seventeen years, had passed with- 
out a good deal being done, Alister working alone when 
Ian was away, and the cave had now assumed notable 
dimensions. It was called by the people uamh an 
ceann , the cave of the chief, and regarded as his coun- 
try house. All around it was covered with snow 
throughout the winter and spring, and supplied little to 
the need of man beyond the blessed air, and a glorious 
vision of sea and land, mountain and valley, falling 
water, gleaming lake, and shadowy cliff. 

Crossing the wide space where so lately they had 
burned the heather that the sheep might have its young 


222 


what’s mine’s mine. 


shoots in the spring, the brothers stood, and gazed around 
with delight. 

“ There is nothing like this anywhere! ” said Ian. 

“ Do you mean nothing so beautiful ?” asked Alister. 

“No; I mean just what I say : there is nothing like 
it. I do not care a straw whether one scene be more or 
less beautiful than another ; what I do care for is — its 
individual speech to my soul. I feel towards visions of 
nature as towards writers. If a book or a prospect 
i produces in my mind a word that no other produces, 
then I feel it individual, original, real, therefore pre- 
cious. If a scene or a song play upon the organ of 
my heart as no other scene or song could, why should I 
ask whether it be beautiful at all ? A bare hill may be 
more to me than a garden of Damascus, but I love 
them both. The first question as to any work of art is 
whether it puts the willing soul into any mood at all 
• peculiar ; the second, what that mood is. It matters to 
me little by whom our Ossian was composed, and it 
matters nothing whoever may in his ignorance declare 
that there never was an Ossian any more than a Homer : 
here is a something that has power over my heart and 
soul, works upon them as not anything else does. Ido 
not ask whether its power be great or small ; that it 
is a peculiar power, one by itself, is enough ; that it puts 
my spiritual consciousness in a certain individual condi- 
tion such in character as nothing else can produce : either 
a man or nation must have felt to make me so feel.” 

They were now climbing the last slope of the hill on 
whose top stood their play-house, dearer now than in 
their boyhood. Alister occasionally went there for a 
few hours solitude, and Ian would write there for days 
at a time, but in general when they visited the place it 
was together. 


THE BROTHERS. 


223 


Alister unlocked the door and they entered. 

Unwilling to spend labor on the introductory, they had 
made the first chamber hardly larger than the room 
required for opening the door. Immediately within, 
another door opened into a room of about eight feet by 
twelve, with two small windows. Its hearth was a pro- 
jection from the floor of the live stone ; and there, all 
ready for lighting, w*as a large pile of peats. The chim- 
ney went up through the rock, and had been the most 
difficult part of their undertaking. They had to work 
it much wider than was necessary for the smoke, and 
then to reduce its capacity with stone and lime. Now 
and then it smoked, but peat-smoke is sweet. 

The thing first after lighting the fire, was to fill their 
kettle, for which they had to take off the snow-lid of a 
little spring near at hand. Then they made a good 
meal of tea, mutton-ham, oatcakes and butter. The 
only seats in the room were a bench in each of two of 
the walls, and a chair on each side of the hearth, all of 
the live rock. 

From this opened two rooms more — one a bedroom, 
with a bed in the rock-wall, big enough for two. Dry 
heather stood thick between the mattress and the stone. 
The third room, of which they intended making a par- 
lor, was not yet more than half excavated ; and there, 
when they had rested a while, they began to bore and 
chip at the stone. Their progress was slow, for the 
grain was close : never, even when the snow above was 
melting, had the least moisture come through. For a 
time they worked and talked : both talked better when 
using their hands. Then Alister stopped, and played 
while Ian went on ; Ian stopped next, and read aloud 
from a manuscript he had brought, while his brother 
resumed work. But first he gave Alister the history of 


224 


what’s mine’s mine. 


what he was going to read. It was suggested, he said, 
by that strange poem of William Mayne’s called “ The 
Dead Man’s Moan,” founded on the silly notion that 
the man himself is buried when his body is laid in the 
grave. 

I wish I were up to straught my banes, 

And drive frae my face the cauld, dead air; 

I wish I were up, that the friendly rains 
Micht wash the dark mould frae my tangled hair! 

quoted Ian, and added, “ I thought I should like to fol- 
low out the idea, and see what ought to come of it. I 
therefore supposed a person seized by some strange ill- 
ness of the cataleptic kind, from which he comes to him- 
self still in the body, but unable to hold the least com- 
munication with the outer world. He thinks therefore 
that he is dead and buried. Recovering from his first 
horror, he reflects that, as he did not make himself think 
and feel, nor can cease to think and feel if he would, 
there must be somewhere — and where but within him- 
self ? — the power by which he thinks and feels, a power 
whose care it must be, for it can belong to no other, to 
look after the creature he has made. Then comes to 
him the prayer of Job, ‘ Oh that thou wouldst hide me 
in the grave till thy anger with me was past, when thou 
wouldst want to see again the work of thy hands, the 
creature thou didst make ! Then wouldst thou call, 
and I would answer.’ So grandly is the man comforted 
thereby, that he breaks out into a song of triumph over 
death and the grave. As its last tone leaves his lips, a ) 
kiss falls upon them. It is the last thing he feels on 
earth ; the same moment he breaks from the bonds and 
clouds of the body, and enters into the joy of the 
Lord.” 

Having thus prepared Alister to hear without having 


THE BROTHERS. 


225 


to think as well as attend, which is not good for poetry, 
Tan read his verses. I will not trouble my reader 
with them ; I am sure he would not think so well of 
them as did Alister. What Ian desired was sympathy, 
not admiration, but from Alister he had both. 

Few men would care to hear the talk of those two, 
for they had no interest in anything that did not be- 
long to the reality of things. To them the things most 
men count real, were the merest phantasms. They 
sought what would not merely last, but must go on 
growing. At strife with all their known selfishness, 
they were growing into strife with all the selfishness in 
them as yet unknown. There was for them no question 
of choice ; they must choose what was true ; they must 
choose life ; they must not walk in the way of death. 

They were very near to agreeing about everything 
they should ask. Few men are capable of understand- 
ing such love as theirs, the love of David and Jonathan, 
of Shakspere to W. H., of Tennyson and Hallam. 
Every such love, nevertheless, is a possession of the 
race ; what has once been is, in possibility to come, as 
well as in fact that has come. A solitary instance of 
anything great is enough to prove it human, yea neces- 
sary to humanity. ( I have wondered whether the man 
in whom such love is possible, may not spring of an al- 
together happy conjunction of male and female — a 
father and mother who not only loved each other, but 
were of the same mind in high things, of the same lofty 
aims in life, so that their progeny came of their true 
man-and-womanhood. If any unaccountable disruption 
or discord of soul appear in a man, it is worth while to 
ask whether his father and mother were of one aspira- 
tion. Might not the fact that their marriage did not 
go deep enough, that father and mother were not of 


226 


what’s mine’s mine. 


one mind, only of one body, serve to account for the 
rude results of some marriages of personable people ? 
We must not forget, however, the endless and un- 
fathomable perpetuations of ancestry^ However these 
things may be, those two men, brothers born, were also 
so made as to love one another. 

They ceased quarrying, and returned to the outer 
room. Ian betook himself to drawing figures on one of 
the walls, with the intention of carving them in dipped 
relief. Alister proceeded to take their bedding from 
before the fire, and prepare for the night. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


THE PRINCESS, 


HILE they were thus busied, Ian, with his face 



V V to the wall, in the dim light of the candle by 
which he was making his first rough sketches, began 
the story of his flight from Russia. Long ere he 
ended, Alister came close behind him, and there stood, 
his bosom heaving with emotion, his eyes burning with 
a dry fire. Ian was perfectly composed, his voice quiet 
and low. 

I will not give his tale in the first person ; and will 
tell of it only as much as I think it necessary my reader 
should know. 

Having accepted a commission of the Czar, he was 
placed in a post of trust in the palace. 

In an apartment of it, lived one of the imperial 
princesses, the burden of whose rank had not even 
the alleviation of society. Her disclosure of a sym- 
pathy with oppressed humanity had wakened a doubt 
as to her politics, and she was virtually a prisoner, 
restricted to a corner of the huge dwelling, and allowed 
to see hardly any but her women. 

Her father had fallen into disgrace before her, and 
her mother was dead of grief. All around her were 
spies, and love was nowhere. Gladly would she have 
yielded every rag of her rank, to breathe the air of 
freedom. To be a peasant girl on her father’s land, 
would be a life of rapture ! 


227 


228 


what’s mine’s mine. 


She knew little of the solace books might have given 
her. With a mind capable of rapid development, she 
had been ill taught except in music ; and that, alone, % 
cannot do much for spiritual development ; it cannot 
enable the longing, the aspiration it rouses, to under- 
stand itself; it cannot lead back to its own eternal 
source. 

She knew no one in whom to trust, or from whom 
to draw comfort; her confessor was a man of the 
world, incapable of leading her to any fountain of liv- 
ing water; she had no one to tell her of^God and his 
fatherhood, the only and perfect refuge from the mis- 
eries of an unloved existence. 

A great corridor went from end to end of one of the 
wings of the palace, and from this corridor another 
passage led towards the apartment of the princess, con- 
sisting of some five or six rooms. At certain times of 
the day, Ian had to be at the end of the corridor, at 
the head of a huge stair with a spacious hall-like land- 
ing. Along the corridor few passed, for the attendants 
used a back stair and passages. As he sat in the recess 
of a large window, where stood a table and chair for 
his use, Ian one morning heard a cry — whence, he 
never knew — and darted along the corridor, thinking 
assistance might be wanted. When about halfway 
down, he saw a lady enter near the end of it, and come 
slowly along. He stood aside, respectfully waiting till 
she should pass. Her eyes were on the ground, but as 
she came near she raised them. The sadness of them 
went to his heart, and his soul rushed into his. The 
princess, I imagine, had never before met such an ex- 
pression, and misunderstood it. Lonely, rejected, too 
helpless even to hope, it seemed full of something she 
had all her life been longing for — a soul to be her 


THE PRINCESS. 


229 


refuge from the wind, her covert from the tempest, 
her shadow as of a great rock in the weary land where 
no one cared for her. She stood and gazed at him. 

Tan at once perceived who she must be, and stood 
waiting for some expression of her pleasure. But she 
appeared fascinated ; her eyes remained on his, for 
they seemed to her to be promising help. Her fascina- 
tion fascinated him, and for some moments they stood 
thus, regarding each other. Ian felt he must break the 
spell. It was her part to speak, his to obey, but he 
knew the danger of the smallest suspicion. If she was 
a princess and he but a soldier on guard, she was a 
woman and he was a man : he was there to protect 
her ! “ How may I serve your imperial highness?” he 

asked. She was silent for a moment, then said, “Your 
name?” He gave it. “ Your nation?” He stated it. 
“When are you here?” He told her his hours. “I 
will see you again,” she said, and turned and went 
back. 

From that moment she loved him, and thought he 
loved her. But, though he would willingly have died 
for her, he did not love her as she thought. Alister 
wondered to hear him say so. At such a moment, and 
heart free, Alister could no more have helped falling 
in love with her than he could help opening his eyes 
when the light shone on their lids. Ian, with a greater 
love for his kind than even Alister, and with a tender- 
ness for womankind altogether infinite, was not ready 
to fall in love. Accessible indeed he was to the finest 
of Nature’s witcheries; ready for the response as of 
summer lightnings from opposing horizons ; all aware 
of loveliest difference, of refuge and mysterious comple- 
ment ; but he was not prone to fall in love. 

The princess, knowing the ways of the house, con- 


230 


what’s mine’s mine. 


trived to see him pretty often. He talked to her of 
the best he knew ; he did what he could to lighten her 
loneliness by finding her books and music ; best of all, 
he persuaded her — without difficulty — to read the 
New Testament. In their few minutes of conference, 
he tried to show her the Master of men as he showed 
himself to his friends. But their time together was 
always short, and their anxiety for each other so great, 
seeing that discovery would be ruin to both, that they 
could not go far with anything. 

At length came an occasion when at parting they 
embraced. How it was Ian could not tell. He 
blamed himself much, but Alister thought it might 
not have been his fault. The same moment he was 
aware that he did not love her and that he could not 
turn back. He was ready to do anything, everything 
in honor; yet felt false inasmuch as he had given 
her ground for believing that he felt towards her as he 
could not help seeing she felt towards him. Had it 
been in his power to order his own heart, he would 
have willed to love, and so would have loved her. But 
the princess doubted nothing, and the change that 
passed upon her was wonderful. The power of human 
love is next to the power of God’s love. Like a flower 
long repressed by cold she blossomed so suddenly in 
the sunshine of her bliss, that Ian greatly dreaded the 
suspicion which the too evident alteration might 
arouse : the plain, ordinary-looking young woman with 
fine eyes, began to put on the robes of beauty. A soft- 
est vapor of rose, the color of the east when sundown 
sets it dreaming of sunrise, tinged her cheek ; it 
grew round like that of a girl ; and ere two months 
were gone, she looked years younger than her age. 
Still Ian could never be absolutely open with her ; 


THE PRINCESS. 


231 


while she, poor princess, happy in her ignorance of the 
shows of love, and absorbed in the joy of its great 
deliverance, jealoused nothing of restraint, nothing of 
lack, either in his words or in the caresses of which he 
was religiously sparing. He was haunted by the 
dread of making her grieve who had already grieved 
so much, and was but just risen from the dead. 

One evening they met as usual in the twilight; in 
five minutes the steps of the man would be heard com- 
ing to light the lamps of the corridor, his guard would 
be over, and he must retire. Few words passed, but 
they parted with more of lingering tenderness than 
usual, and the princess put a little packet in his hand. 
The same night his only friend in the service entered 
his room hurriedly, and urged immediate flight : some- 
thing had been, or was imagined to be discovered, 
through which his liberty, perhaps his life, was com- 
promised; he must leave at once by a certain coach 
which would start in an hour : there was but just time 
to disguise him ; he must make for a certain port on 
the Baltic, and there lie concealed until a chance of 
getting away turned up ! 

Ian refused. He feared nothing, had done nothing 
to be ashamed of ! What was it to him if they did 
take his life! he could die as well as another! Anx- 
ious about the princess, he persisted in his refusal, and 
the coach went without him. Every passenger in that 
coach was murdered. He saw afterwards the signs of 
their fate in the snow. 

In the middle of the night, a company of men in 
masks entered his room, muffled his head, and hurried 
him into a carriage, which drove rapidly away. 

When it stopped, he thought he had arrived at some 
prison, but soon found himself in another carriage, 


232 


what’s mine’s mine. 


with two of the police. He could have escaped had 
he been so minded, but he could do nothing for the 
princess, and did not care what became of him. At a 
certain town his attendants left him, with the assur- 
ance that if he did not make haste out of the country, 
he would find they had not lost sight of him. 

But instead of obeying he disguised himself, and 
took his way to Moscow, where he had friends. 
Thence he wrote to his friend at St. Petersburg. Not 
many letters passed ere he learned that the princess 
was dead. She had been placed in closer confinement, 
her health gave way, and by a rapid decline she had 
gained her freedom. 

All the night through, not closing their eyes till the 
morning, the brothers, with many intervals of thought- 
ful silence, lay talking. 

“ I am glad to think,” said Alister, after one of these 
silences, “ you do not suffer so much, Ian, as if you had 
been downright in love with her.” 

“ I suffer far more,” answered Ian with a sigh ; “ and 
I ought to suffer more. It breaks my heart to think 
she had not so much from me as she thought she had.” 

They were once more silent. Alister was full of 
trouble for his brother. Ian at length spoke again. 

“Alister,” he said, “I must tell you everything! I 
know the truth now. If I wronged her, she is having 
her revenge ! ” 

By his tone Alister seemed through the darkness to 
see his sad smile. He was silent, and Alister waited. 

“ She did not know much,” Ian resumed. “ I thought 
at first she had nothing but good manners and a good 
heart ; but the moment the sun of another heart began 
to shine on her, the air of another’s thought to breathe 
upon her, the room of another soul to surround her, she 


THE PRINCESS. 


233 


began to grow; and what more could God intend or 
man desire ? As I told you, she grew beautiful, and 
what sign of life is equal to that ! ” 

“ But I want to know what you mean by her having 
her revenge on you ? ” said Alister. 

“ Whether I loved her then or not, and I believe I 
did, beyond a doubt I love her now. It needed only 
to be out of sight of her, and see other women beside 
the memory of her, to know that I loved her. — Alister, 
I love her ! ” repeated Ian with a strange exaltation. 

“ Oh, Ian ! ” groaned Alister ; “ how terrible for 
you ! ” 

“ Alister, you dear fellow ! ” returned Ian, “ can you 
understand no better than that ? Do you not see I am 
happy now? My trouble was that I did not love her — 
not that she loved me, but that I did not love her! 
Now we shall love each other for ever ! ” 

“ How do you know that, Ian ? ” 

“ By knowing that I love her. If I had not come to 
know that, I could not have said to myself I would love 
her for ever.” 

“ But you can’t marry her, Ian ! The Lord said there 
. would be no marrying there ! ” 

“ Did he say there would be no love there, Alister ? 
Most people seem to fancy he did, for how else could 
I they forget the dead as they do, and look so little for 
their resurrection ? Few can be said really to believe in 
any hereafter worth believing in. How many go against 
the liking of the dead the moment they are gone — 
behave as if they were nowhere, and could never call 
them to account ! Their plans do not recognize their 
existence; the life beyond is no factor in their life 
here. If God has given me a hope altogether beyond 
anything I could have generated for myself, beyond all 


234 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the likelihoods and fulfilments around me, what can I 
do but give him room to verify it — what but look on- 
ward ! Some people’s bodies get so tired that they 
long for the rest of the grave ; it is my soul that gets 
tired, and I know the grave can give that no rest ; I 
look for the rest of more life, more strength, more love. 
But God is not shut up in heaven, neither is there one 
law of life there and another here ; I desire more life 
here, and shall have it, for what is needful for this 
world is to be had in this world. In proportion as I 
become one with God, I shall have it. This world 
never did seem my home ; I have never felt quite com- 
fortable in it ; I have yet to find, and shall find the 
perfect home I have not felt this world, even my moth- 
er’s bosom to be. Nature herself is not lovely enough 
to satisfy me. Nor can it be that I am beside myself, 
seeing I care only for the will of God, not for my own. 
For what is madness but two or more wills in one 
body ? Does the Bible itself not tell us that we are 
pilgrims and strangers in the world, that here we have 
no abiding city ? It is but a place to which we come 
to be made ready for another. Yet I am sure those 
who regard it as their home, are not half so well pleased 
with it as I. They are always grumbling at it. ‘What 
wretched weather ! ’ they say. ‘ What a cursed mis- 
fortune!’ they cry. ‘What abominable luck!’ they 
protest. Health is the first thing, they say, and cannot 
find it. They complain that their plans are thwarted, 
and when they succeed they do not give them the sat- 
isfaction they expected. Yet they mock at him who 
says he seeks a better country! — But I am keeping 
you awake, Alister ! I will talk no more. You must 
go to sleep ! ” 

“ It is better than any sleep to hear you talk, Tan,” 


THE PRINCESS. 


235 


returned Alister. “ What a way you are ahead of me ! 
I do love this world ! When I come to die, it will tear 
my heart to think that this cave which you and I have 
dug out together, must pass into other hands ! I love 
every foot of the earth that remains to us — every foot 
that has been taken from us. When I stand on the 
top of this rock, and breathe the air of this mountain, 

I bless God we have still a spot to call our own. It is 
quite a different thing from the love of mere land ; I 
could not feel the same towards any, however beautiful, 
that I had but bought. This, our own old land, I feel ! 
as if I loved in something the same way as I love my 
mother. Often in the hot summer-days, lying on my 
face in the grass, I have kissed the earth as if it were a 
live creature that could return my caresses ! The long 
grass is a passion to me, and next to the grass I love 
the heather, not the growing corn. I am a fair farmer, 

I think, but I would rather see the land grow what it 
pleased, than pass into the hands of another. Place is 
to me sacred almost as body. There is at least some- 
thing akin between the love we bear to the bodies of 
our friends, and that we bear to the place in which we 
were born and brought up.” 

“ That is all very true, Alister. I understand your 
feeling perfectly ; I have it myself. But we must be 
weaned, I say only weaned, from that kind of thing ; we 
must not love the outside as if it were the inside ! Every- 
thing comes that we may know the sender — of whom 
it is a symbol, that is, a far-off likeness of something in : 
him; and to him it must lead us — the self-existent, 
true, original love, the making love. But I have felt 
all you say. I used to lie in bed, and imagine the 
earth alive and carrying me on her back, till I fell 
asleep longing to see the face of my nurse. Once, the 


236 


what’s mine’s mine. 


fancy burned into a dream. I will try to recall a son- 
net I made the same night, before the dream came : 
it will help you to understand it. I was then about 
nineteen, I believe. I did not care for it enough to re- 
peat it to you, and I fear we shall find it very bad.” 

Stopping often to recall and rearrange words and 
lines, Ian completed at last the following sonnet : — 

She set me on my feet with steady hand, 

Among the crowding marvels on her face, 

Bidding me rise, and run a strong man’s race ; 

Swathed me in circumstance’s swaddling band;’ 

Fed me with her own self; then bade me stand 
il/yself entii’e, — while she was but a place 
Hewn for my dwelling from the midst of space, — 

A something better than her sea or land. 

Nay, Earth ! thou bearest me upon thy back, 

Like a rough nurse, and I can almost feel 
A touch of kindness in thy hands of steel, 

Although I cannot see thy face, and track 
An onward purpose shining through its black, 

Instinct with prophecy of future weal. 

“ There ! It is not much, is it ? ” 

“ Itys beautiful ! ” protested Alister. 

“ It is worth nothing,” said Ian, “ except between 
you and me — and that it will make you understand 
my dream. That I shall never forget. When a dream 
does us good we don’t forget it. 

“ I thought I was borne on the back of something 
great and strong — I could not tell what ; it might be 
an elephant or a great eagle or a lion. It went sweep- 
ing swiftly along, the wind of its flight roaring past 
me in a tempest. I began to grow frightened. Where 
could this creature of such awful speed be taking me ? 
I prayed to God to take care of me. The head of the 
creature turned to me, and I saw the face of a woman, 
grand and beautiful. Never with my open eyes have I 


THE PRINCESS. 


237 


seen such a face ! And I knew it was the face of this 
earth, and that I had never seen it before because she 
carries us upon her back. When I woke, I knew that 
all the strangest things in life and history must one day 
come together in a beautiful face of loving purpose, 
one of the faces of the living God. The very mother 
of the Lord did not for a long time understand him, and 
only through sorrow came to see true glory. Alister, 
if we were right with God, we could see the earth van- 
ish and never heave a sigh ; God, of whom it was but 
a shimmering revelation, would still be ours ! ” 

In the morning they fell asleep, and it was daylight, 
late in the winter, when Alister rose. He roused the 
fire, asleep all through the night, and prepared their 
breakfast of porridge and butter, tea, oat-cake, and 
mutton-ham. When it was nearly ready, he woke Ian, 
and when they had eaten, they read together a portion 
of the Bible, that they might not forget, and start the 
life of the day without trust in the life-causing God. 

“ All that is not rooted in him,” Ian would say, “ all 
hope or joy that does not turn its face upward, is an 
idolatry. Our prayers must rise that our thoughts 
may follow them.” 

The portion they read contained the saying of the 
Lord that we must forsake all and follow him if we 
would be his disciples. 

“ I am sometimes almost terrified,” said Ian, “ at the 
scope of the demands made upon me, at the perfection 
of the self-abandonment required of me ; yet outside of 
such absoluteness can be no salvation. In God we live 
every commonplace as well as most exalted moment of 
our lives. To trust in him when no need is pressing, 
when things seem going right of themselves, may be 
harder than when things seem going wrong. At no 


238 


what’s mine’s mine. 


time is there any danger except in ourselves, and the 
only danger is of brushing in something else than the 
living God, and so getting, as it were, outside of God. 
Oh Alister, take care you do not love the land more 
than the will of God ! Take care you do not love even 
your people more than the will of God.” 

They spent the day on the hill-top, and as there was 
no sign of storm, remained till the dark night, when the 
moon came to light them home. 

“ Perhaps when we are dead,” said Alister as they 
went, “we may be allowed to come here again some- 
times! Only we shall not be able to quarry any 
farther, and there is a pain in looking on what cannot 
go on.” 

“ It may be a special pleasure,” returned Ian, “ in 
those new conditions to look into such a changeless 
cabinet of the past. When we are one with our life, so 
that no prayer can be denied, there will be no end to 
the lovely possibilities.” 

“So I have the people I love, I think I could part 
with all things else, even the land ! ” said Alister. 

“Be sure we shall not have to part with them. We 
shall yet walk, I think, with our father as of old, where 
the setting sun sent the shadows of the big horse-gowans 
that glowed in his red level rays, trooping eastward, as if 
they would go round the world to meet the sun that 
had banished them, and die in his glory ; the wind of 
the twilight will again breathe about us like a thought 
of the living God haunting our goings, and watching to 
help us ; the stars will call to us out of the great night, 
‘Love and be fearless. Be independent!’ cries the 
world from its great Bible of. the Belly ; says the Lord 
of men, ‘ Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto 


THE PRINCESS. 


239 


you.’ Our dependence is our eternity. We cannot live 
on bread alone ; we need every word of God. We cannot 
live on air alone ; we need an atmosphere of living 
souls. Should we be freer, Alister, if we were inde- 
pendent of each other ? When I am out in the world, 
my heart is always with mother and you. We must 
be constantly giving ourselves away, we must dwell in 
houses of infinite dependence, or sit alone in the waste 
of a godless universe.” 

It was a rough walk in the moonlight over the hills, 
but full of rare delight. And while they walked the 
mother was waiting them, with the joy of St. John, of 
the Saviour, of God himself in her heart, the joy of 
beholding how the men she loved loved each other. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


THE TWO PAIRS. 

T HE next morning, on the way to the village, the 
brothers overtook Christina and Mercy, and they 
j walked along together. 

The young men felt the more inclined to be friendly 
with the girls, that the men of their own family were 
so unworthy of them. ’• A man who does not respect a 
woman because she is a woman, cannot have thorough 
respect for his own mother, protest as he pleases : he is 
. incapable of it, and cannot know his own incapacity, 
j Alas for girls in a family where the atmosphere of vile 
\ thinking, winnowed by the carrion wings of degraded 
and degrading judgments, infolds them ! One of the 
! marvels of the world is, that, with such fathers and 
brothers, there are so few wicked women. Type of the 
j greater number stands Ophelia, poor, weak, and not 
\ very refined, yet honest, and, in all her poverty, im- 
measurably superior to father and brother. 

Christina’s condescension had by this time dwindled 
j almost to the vanishing-point and her talk was in con- 
sequence more natural : the company, conversation, and 
whole atmosphere of the young men, tended to wake in 
; the girls what was best and sweetest. Reality appeals 
at once to the real, opens the way for a soul to emerge 
from the fog of the commonplace, the marsh of plati- 
tude, the Sahara of lies, into the color and air of life. 
The better things of humanity often need the sun of 
240 


THE TWO PAIRS. 


241 


friendship to wile them out. A girl, well-bred, toler- 
ably clever, and with some genius of accommodation, 
will appear to a man possessed of a hundred faculties 
of which she knows nothing ; but his belief will help to 
rouse them in her. A young man will see an angel 
where those who love her best see only a nice girl ; but 
he sees not merely what she might be, but what one 
day she must be. 

Christina had been at first rather taken with the 
ploughman, but she turned her masked batteries now 
mainly on the soldier. During the dinner she had noted 
how entirely Ian was what she chose to call a man of 
the world ; and it rendered him in her eyes worthy of 
conquest. Besides, as elder sister, must she not protect 
the inexperienced Mercy ? 

What is this passion for subjugation? this hunger for 
homage? Is it of hell direct, or what is there in it of 
good to begin with ? Apparently it takes possession of 
such women as have set up each herself for the object 
of her worship, and cannot then rest from the effort to 
bring as many as possible to worship at the same shrine; 
to which end they will use means as deserving of the 
fire as any witchcraft. 

Christina stopped short with a little cry, and caught 
Ian’s arm. 

“ I beg your pardon,” she said, “ but I cannot bear it 
a moment longer ! Something in my boot hurts me 
so!” 

She limped to the road-side, sat down, accepted the ser- 
vice of Ian to unlace her boot, and gave a sigh of relief 
when he pulled it off. He inverted and shook it, then 
searched and found a nail which must have hurt her 
severely. 

But how to get rid of the cruel projection ! Ian’s 


242 


what’s mine’s mine. 


slender hand could but just reach with its finger-tips 
the haunted spot. In vain he tried to knock it down 
against a stone put inside. Alister could suggest noth- 
ing. But Mistress Conal’s cottage was near : they 
might there find something to help ! Only Christina 
could not be left behind, and how was she to walk in a 
silk stocking over a road frozen hard as- glass. The 
chief would have carried her, but she would not let 
him. Ian therefore shod her with his Glengarry bon- 
net, tying it on with his handkerchief. 

There was much merriment over the extemporized 
shoe, mingled with apologetic gratitude from Christina, 
who, laughing at her poulticed foot, was yet not dis- 
pleased at its contrast with the other. 

When the chief opened the door of the cottage, there 
was no one to be seen within. The fire was burning 
hot and flameless ; a three-footed pot stood half in 
it ; other sign of presence they saw none. As Alister 
stooped searching for some implement to serve their 
need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back and 
disappeared. The same instant they heard a groan, 
and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seem- 
ingly very ill. Ian went up to her. 

“ What is the matter with you, Mistress Conal ? ” he 
asked, addressing her in English because of the ladies. 

Bnt in reply she poured out a torrent of Gaelic, which 
seemed to the girls only grumbling, but was something 
stronger. Thereupon the chief went and spoke to her, 
but she was short and sullen with him. He left her to 
resume his search. 

“ Let alone,” she cried. “When that nail leaves her 
brog, it will be for your heart.” 

He sought to soothe her. 

“ She will bring misery on you ! ” she insisted. 


THE TWO PAIRS. 


243 


“ You have a hammer somewhere, I know ! ” said 
Alister, as if he had not heard her words. 

“ She shall be finding no help in my house,” answered 
the old woman in English. 

“Very well, Mistress Conal ! ” returned the chief; 
“ the lady cannot walk home ; I shall have to carry 
her ! ” 

“ God forbid ! ” she cried. “ Go and fetch a wheel- 
barrow.” • 

“ Mistress Conal, there is nothing for it but to can y 
her home in my arms! ” 

“Give me the cursed brog then. I will draw the 
nail.” 

But the chief would not yield the boot. He went out 
and searched the hill-side until he found a smooth stone 
of suitable size, with which and a pair of tongs, he beat 
down the nail. Christina put on the boot, and they 
left the place. The chief stayed behind the rest for a 
moment, but the old woman would not even acknowl- 
edge his presence. 

“ What a rude old thing she is ! That is how she 
always treats us ! ” said Christina. 

“ Have you done anything to offend her ? ” asked 
Alister. 

“ Not that we know of. We can’t help being low- 
landers ! ” 

“ She no doubt bears you a grudge,” said Ian, “ for 
having what once belonged to us. I am sorry she is so 
unfriendly. It is not a common fault with our peo- 
ple.” 

« Poor old thing ! what does it matter ! ” said Chris- 
tina. 

A woman’s hate was to her no more than the barking 
of a dog. 


244 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


They had not gone far, before the nail again asserted 
itself ; it had been but partially subjugated. A consul- 
tation was held. It resulted in this, that Mercy and 
the chief went to fetch another pair of boots, while Ian 
remained with Christina. 

They seated themselves on a stone by the roadside. 
The sun clouded over, a keen wind blew, and Chris- 
tina shivered. There was nothing for it but go back to 
the cottage. The key was in the door. Iaii turned it, 
and they went in. Certainly, this time no one was there. 
The old woman so lately groaning on her bed had van- 
ished. Ian made up the fire, and did what he could 
for his companion’s comfort. She was not pleased with 
the tone of his attentions, but the way she accepted 
them made her appear more pleased than Ian cared for, 
and he became colder and more polite. Piqued by his 
indifference, she took it nevertheless with a sweetness 
which belonged to her nature as God made it, not as 
she had spoiled it ; and even such a butterfly as she, 
felt the influence of a man like Ian, and could not help 
being more natural in his presence. His truth elicited 
what there was of hers ; the true being drew’ to the sur- 
face what there was of true in the being that was not 
true. The longer she was in his company, the more 
she was pleased with him, and the more annoyed with 
her failure in pleasing him. 

It is generally more or less awkward when a young 
man and maiden between whom is no convergent rush 
of spiritual currents, find themselves alone together. 
Ian was one of the last to feel such awkwardness, but 
he thought his companion felt it ; he did his best, there- 
fore, to make her forget herself and him, telling her 
story after story which she could not but find the more 
interesting that for the time she was quieted from self, 


THE TWO PAIRS. 


245 


and placed in the humbler and healthier position of re- 
ceiving the influence of another. For one moment, as 
he was narrating a hair’sbreadth escape he had had from 
a company of Tartar soldiers by the friendliness of a 
young girl, the daughter of a Siberian convict, she 
found herself under the charm of a certain potency 
of which he was himself altogether unconscious, but 
which had carried away hearts more indifferent than 
hers. / 

In the meantime, Alister and Mercy were walking 
towards the New House and, walking, were more com- 
fortable than those that sat waiting. Mercy indeed had 
not much to say, but she was capable of asking a ques- 
tion worth answering, and of understanding not a little. 
Thinking of her walk with Ian on Christmas day, — 

“ Would you mind telling me something about your 
brother ? ” she said. 

“ What would you like to know about him ? ” asked 
Alister. 

“ Anything you please to tell me,” she answered. 

Now there was nothing pleased Alister better than 
talking about Ian ; and he talked so that Mercy could 
not help feeling what a brother he must be himself ; while 
on his part Alister was delighted with the girl who took 
such an interest in Ian : for Ian’s sake he began to 
love Mercy. He had never yet been what is called in 
love — had had little opportunity indeed of falling 
in love. His breeding had been that of a gentleman, 
and notwithstanding the sweetness and gentleness of 
the maidens of his clan, there were differences which 
had as yet proved sufficient to prevent the first ap- 
proaches of love, though, once entertained, they might 
have added to the depth of it. At the same time it 
was by no means impossible for Alister to fall in love 


246 


what’s mine’s mine. 


with even an uneducated girl — so called ; neither would 
he, in that case, have felt any difficulty about marrying 
her ; but the fatherly relation in which he stood to- 
wards his clan, had tended rather to prevent the thing. 
Many a youth falls to premature love-making from the 
lack in his daily history of the womanly element. Ma- 
trons in towns should be exhorted to make of their 
| houses a refuge. Too many mothers are anxious for 
1 what they count the welfare of their own children, and 
care nothing for the children of other women ! But 
can we wonder, when they will wallow in meannesses 
to save their own from poverty and health, and damn 
them into comfort and decay. 

Alister told Mercy how Ian and he used to spend 
their boyhood. He recounted some of their adventures 
in hunting, and herding and fishing, and even in going 
to and from school, a distance of five miles, in all 
weathers. Then he got upon the poetry of the people, 
their legends, their ballads and their songs ; and at last 
came to the poetry of the country itself — the delights 
of following the plough, the whispers and gleams of 
nature, her endless appeal through every sense. The 
mere smell of the earth in a spring morning, he said, 
always made him praise God. 

“ Everything we have,” he went on,“ must be shared 
with God. That is the notion of the Jewish thank-of- 
fering. Ian says the greatest word in the universe is 
one ; the next greatest, all. They are but the two ends 
of a word to us unknowable — God’s name for himself.” 

Mercy had read Mrs. Barbauld’s Hymns, and they had 
been something to her ; but most of the little poetrys 
she had read was only platitude sweetened with sound; 
she had never read, certainly never understood a real 
poem. /Who can tell what a nature may prove, after 


THE TWO PAIRS. 


247 


feeding on good food for a while ? The queen bee is 
only a better fed working bee. Who can tell what it 
may prove when it has been ploughed with the plough 
of suffering, when the rains of sorrow, the frosts of pain, 
and the winds of poverty have moistened and swelled 
and dried its fallow clods ? 

Mercy had not such a sweet temper as her sister, 
but she was not so selfish. She was readier to take of- 
fence, perhaps just because she was less self-satisfied. 
Before long they might change places. A little dew from 
the eternal fountain was falling upon them. Christina 
was beginning to be aware that a certain man, neither 
rich, nor distinguished nor ambitious, had yet a real 
charm for her. Not that for a moment she would 
think seriously of such a man ! That would be simply 
idiotic ! But it would be very nice to have a little 
innocent flirtation with him, or perhaps a “ Platonic 
friendship ! ” — her phrase, not mine. What could she 
have to do with Plato, who, when she said I, was aware 
only of a neat bundle of foolish desires, not the God at 
her heart ! 

Mercy, on the other hand, was being strongly drawn 
to the big, strong, childlike heart of the chief./ There 
is always, notwithstanding the gulf of unlikeness be- 
tween them, an appeal from the childish to the child- 
like. The childish is but the shadow of the childlike, 
and shadows are little like the things from which they 
fall. But to what save the heavenly shall the earthly 
appeal in its sore need, its widowhood, its orphanage ? 
with what shall the childish take refuge but the child- 
like ? to what shall ignorance cry but wisdom ? Mercy 
felt no restraint with the chief as with Ian. His great, 
deep, yet refined and musical laugh, set her at ease. 
Ian’s smile, with its shimmering eternity, was no more 


248 


what’s mine’s mine. 


than the moon on a rain-pool to Mercy. The moral 
health of the chief made an atmosphere of conscious 
safety around her. By the side of no other man had 
she ever felt so. With him she was at home, there- 
fore happy. She was already growing under his genial 
influence. Every being has such influence who is not 
selfish. 

When Christina was re-shod, and they were leaving 
the cottage, Ian, happening to look behind him, spied 
the black cat perched on the edge of the chimney in the 
smoke. 

“ Look at her,” he said, “ pretending innocence when 
she has been watching you all the time ! ” 

Alister took up a stone. 

“ Don’t hurt her,” said Ian, and he dropped it. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


AN CABRACH MOR. 

I HAVE already said that the young men had not 
done well as hunters. They had neither experi- 
ence nor trustworthy attendance : none of the chiefs 
men would hunt with them. They looked on them as 
intruders, and yet those who did not share in their 
chiefs dislike to useless killing, respected it. Neither 
Christian nor Sercombe had shot a single stag, and the 
time was drawing nigh when they must return, the one 
to Glasgow, the other to London. To have no proof 
of prowess to display was humbling to Sercombe ; he 
must show a stag’s head, or hide his own ! He resolved, 
by himself, one of the next moonlit nights, to stalk a 
certain great, wide-horned stag, of whose habits he had 
received information. 

At Oxford, where Valentine made his acquaintance, 
Sercombe belonged to a fast set, but had distinguished 
himself notwithstanding as an athlete. He was a great 
favorite with a few, not the best of the set, much ad- 
mired by them for his confidence, his stature, and his 
regular features. These latter wore, however, a self- 
assertion which of others made him much disliked : a 
mean thing in itself, it had the meanest origin — the 
ability, namely, to spend money, for he was the favor- 
ite son of a rich banker in London. \ He knew nothing 
of the first business of life — self-restraint, had never 
denied himself anything, and but for social influences 
249 


250 


what’s mine’s mine. 


would, in manhood as infancy, have obeyed every im- 
pulse. He was one of the merest slaves in the universe, 
a slave in his very essence, for he counted wrong to 
others freedom to himself, and the rejection of the laws 
of his own being liberty. The most righteous interfer- 
ence was insolence ; his likings were his rights, and any 
devil that could whisper him a desire, might do with 
him as he pleased. From such a man every true nature 
shrinks with involuntary recoil, and a sick sense of the 
inhuman.^ But I have said more of him already than 
my history requires, and more than many a reader, par- 
taking himself of his character to an unsuspected de- 
gree, will believe ; for such men cannot know themselves. 
He had not yet disgraced himself in the eyes of the 
world : it takes a good many disgraceful things to bring 
a rich man to disgrace. 

His sole attendant when shooting was a clever vaga- 
bond lad belonging t-o nowhere in particular, and liv- 
ing by any crook except the shepherd’s. From him he 
heard of the great stag, and the spots in the valleys 
which he frequented, often scraping away the snow with 
his feet to get at the grass. He did not inform him 
that the animal was a special favorite with the chief of 
Clanruadh, or that the clan looked upon him as their 
live symbol, the very stag represented as crest to the 
chief’s coat of arms. It was the same Nancy had re- 
ported to her master as eating grass on the burn-side in 
the moonlight. Christian and Sercombe had stalked 
him day after day, but without success. And now, with 
one poor remaining hope, the latter had determined to 
stalk him at night. To despoil him of his life, his glo- 
rious rush over the mountain side, his plunge into the 
valley, and fierce strain up the opposing hill; to see 
that ideal of strength, suppleness, and joyous flight, lie 


AN CABRACH MOR. 


251 


nerveless and placid at his feet ; to be able to call the 
thicket-like antlers of the splendid animal his own, was 
for the time the one ambition of Halary Sercombe ; for 
he was of the brood of Mephistopheles, the child of 
darkness, whose delight lies in undoing what God has 
done — the nearest that any evil power can come to 
creating. 

There was, however, a reason for the failure of the 
young hunters beyond lack of skill and what they called 
their ill-luck. Hector of the Stags was awake ; his keen, 
everywhere-roving eyes were upon them, seconded by 
the keen, all-hearkening ears of Rob of the Angels. 
They had discovered that the two men had set their 
hearts on the big stag, an cabrach mor by right of excel- 
lence, and every time they were out after him, Hector 
too was out with his spy-glass, the gift of an old sea- 
faring friend, searching the billowy hills. While the 
southrons would be toiling along to get the wind of him 
unseen, for the old stag’s eyes were as keen as his vel- 
vety nose, the father and son would be lying, perhaps 
close at hand, perhaps far away on some hillside of an- 
other valley, watching now the hunters, now the stag. 
For love of the Macruadh, and for love of the stag, 
they had constituted themselves his guardians. Again 
and again when one of them thought he was going to 
have a splendid chance — perhaps just as he reached a 
rock to which he had been making his weary way over 
stones and bogs like Satan through chaos, and, raising 
himself with weary slowness, peeped at last over the 
top, and lo, there he was, well within range, quietly feed- 
ing, nought between the great pumping of his big joy- 
ous heart and the hot bullet but the brown skin behind 
his left shoulder ! — a distant shot would forestall the 
nigh one, a shot for life, not death, and the stag, know- 


252 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ing instantly by wondrous combination of sense and 
judgment in what quarter lay the danger, would, with- 
out once looking around him, measure a hundred yards 
of hillocks and rocks between the sight-taking and the 
pulling of the trigger. Another time it would be no 
shot, but the bark of a dog, the cry of a moorfowl, or 
a signal from watching hind that started him ; for the 
creatures understand each the other’s cries, and when 
an animal sees one of any sort on the watch to warn 
covey or herd or flock of its own kind, it will itself 
keep no watch, but feed in security. It seemed to Chris- 
tian and Sercombe as if all the life in the glen were 
in conspiracy to frustrate their heart’s desire ; and the 
latter at least grew ever the more determined to kill the 
great stag : he had begun to hate him. 

The sounds that warned the stag were by no means 
always, when they seemed, uttered by other wild ani- 
mals; they were often but imitations by Rob of the 
Angels. I fear the animal grew somewhat bolder and 
less careful from the assurance thus given him that he 
was watched over, and cultivated a little nonchalance. 
Not a moment, however, did he neglect any warning 
from quarter soever, but from peaceful feeder was in- 
stantaneously wind-like fleer, his great horns thrown 
back over his shoulders, and his four legs just touching 
the ground with elastic hoof, or tucking themselves al- 
most out of sight as he skipped rather than leaped over 
rock and gully, stone and bush — whatever lay betwixt 
him and larger room. Great joy it was to his two 
guardians to see him, and great game to watch the mo- 
tions of his discomfited enemies. For the sake of an 
cabrach mor Hector and Rob would go hungry for 
hours. But they never imagined the luxurious Sasun- 
nach, incapable, as they thought, of hardship or sus- 


AN CABRACH MOR. 


253 


tained fatigue, would turn from his warm bed to stalk 
the lordly animal betwixt snow and moon. 

One night, Hector of the Stags found he could not 
sleep. It was not for cold, for the night was for the 
season a mild one. The snow indeed lay deep around 
their dwelling, but they owed not a little of its warmth 
to the snow. It drifted up all about it, and kept off 
the terrible winds that swept along the side of the hill, 
like sharp swift scythes of death. This was the largest 
and most comfortable of their huts — a deepish hollow 
in the lime-stone rock, lined with turf, and wattles filled 
with heather, the tops outward ; its front a thick wall 
of turf, with a tolerable door of deal. It was indeed 
so snug as to be far from airy. Here they kept what 
little store of anything they had — some dried fish and 
venison ; a barrel of oat-meal, seldom filled full ; a few 
skins of wild creatures, and powder, ball, and shot. 

After many fruitless attempts to catch the still fleet- 
ing vapor sleep, raising himself at last on his elbow, 
Hector found that Rob was not by his side. 

He too had been unable to sleep, and at last discov- 
ered that he was uneasy about something — what, he 
could not tell. He rose and went out. The moon was 
shining very clear, and as there was much snow, the 
night, if not so bright as day, was yet brighter than 
many a day. The moon, the snow, the mountains, all 
dreaming awake, seemed to Rob the same as usual ; but 
presently he fancied the hillside opposite had come nearer 
than usual : there must be a reason for that ! He searched 
every yard of it with keenest gaze, but saw nothing. 

They were high above Glenruadh, and commanded 
parts of it : late though it was, Rob thought he saw 
some light from the New House, which itself he could 
not see; it was reflected from some evergreen in the 


254 


what’s mine’s mine. 


shrubbery ; so bright was the moon that no light on 
the snow would have caught his eye. He was thinking 
some one might be ill, and he ought to run down and 
see whether a messenger was wanted, when his father 
came and joined him. He had brought his telescope, 
and immediately began to sweep the moonlight on the 
opposite hill. In a moment he touched Rob on the 
shoulder, and handed him the telescope, pointing with 
it. Rob looked and saw a dark speck on the snow, 
moving along the hillside. It was the big stag. Now 
and then he would stop to snuff and search for a mouth- 
ful, but was evidently making for one of his feeding- 
places — most likely that by the burn on the chief’s 
land. The light! could it imply danger? He had 
heard the young men were going to leave : were they 
about to attempt a last assault on the glory of the glen ? 
He pointed out to his father the dim light in the shadow 
of the house. Hector turned his telescope thitherward, 
immediately gave the glass to Rob, went into the hut, 
and came out again with his gun. 

They had not gone far when they lost sight of the 
stag, but they held on towards the castle. At every 
point whence a peep could be had in the direction of 
the house, they halted to reconnoitre : if enemies were 
abroad, they must, if possible, get ftnd keep sight of 
them. They did not stop for more than a glance, how- 
ever, but made for the valley as fast as they could walk : 
the noise of running feet would be heard too far on 
such a still night. The whole way, without sound ut- 
tered, father and son kept interchanging their ideas on 
the matter. 

From thorough acquaintance with the habits of the 
animal, they were pretty certain he was on his way to 
the haunt aforementioned : if he got there, he would be 


AN CABRACH MOR. 


255 


safe ; it was the chief’s ground, and no one would dare 
touch him. But he was not yet upon it, and was in 
. danger ; while, if he should leave the spot in any west- 
ward direction, he would almost at once be out of sanct- 
uary ! If they found him therefore at his usual feed, 
and danger threatening, they must scare him eastward ; 
if no peril seemed at hand, they would watch him 
awhile, that he might feed in safety. Swift and all 
but soundless on their quiet brogs they paced along: 
to startle the deer while the hunter was far off, might be 
to drive him within range of his shot. 

They reached the root of the spur, and approached 
the castle ; immediately beyond that, they would be in 
sight of the feeding ground. But they were yet behind 
it when Rob of the Angels bounded forward in terror 
at the sound of a gun. His father, however, who was in 
front, was off before him. Neither hearing anything, 
nor seeing Rob, he knew that a shot had been fired, and, 
caution being now useless, was in a moment at full speed. 
The smoke of the shot hung white in the moonlight 
over the end of the ridge. No red bulk shadowed the 
green pasture, no thicket of horns went shaking about 
over the sod. No lord of creation, but an enemy of 
life, stood regarding his work, a tumbled heap of death, 
yet saying to himself, like God when he made the world, 
“ It is good.” ) The noble creature lay disformed on the 
grass ; shot through the heart he had leaped high in the 
air, fallen with his head under him, and broken his neck. 

Rage filled the heart of Hector of the Stags. He 
could not curse, but he gave a roar like a wild beast, 
and raised his gun. But Rob of the Angels caught it 
ere it reached his shoulder. He yielded, and, with 
another roar like a lion, bounded bare-handed upon the 
enemy. He took the descent in three leaps, and the 


256 


what’s mine’s mine. 


burn in one. It was not merely that the enemy had 
killed an cabrach mor , the great stag of their love ; he 
had killed him on the chief’s own land ! under the very 
eyes of the man whose business it was to watch over 
him ! It was an offence unpardonable ! an insult as 
well as a wrong to his chief ! In the fierce majesty of 
righteous wrath he threw himself on the poacher. Ser- 
combe met him with a blow straight from the shoulder, 
and he dropped. 

Rob of the Angels, close behind him, dropped his 
gun, and the devil all but got into Rob of the Angels, 
as his knife flashed pale in the moonlight, and he darted 
on the enemy. It would then have gone ill with the 
bigger man, for Rob was lithe as a snake, swift not only 
to parry and dodge but to strike ; he could not have 
reached the body of his antagonist, but Srecombe’s 
arm would have had at least one terrible gash from his 
skean-dhu sharp as a razor, had not, at the moment, " 
from the top of the ridge come the stern voice of the 
chief. Rob’s knife, like Excalibur from the hand of 
Sir Bedivere, “ made lightnings in the splendor of the 
moon,” as he threw it from him, and himself down by 
his father. Then Hector came to himself and rose. 
Rob rose also ; and his father, trembling with excite- 
ment, stood grasping his arm, for he saw the stalwart 
form of his chief on the ridge above them. Alister 
had been waked by the gun, and at the roar of his 
friend Hector sprang from his bed. But when he saw 
his beloved stag dead on his pasture, he came down the 
ridge like an avalanche. 

Sercombe stood on his defence, wondering what 
devil was to pay, but beginning to think he might be 
in some wrong box. He had taken no trouble to under- 
stand the boundaries between Mr. Peregrine Palmer’s 


AN CABRACH MOR. 


257 


land and that of the chief, and had imagined himself 
safe on the south side of the big burn. 

Alister gazed speechless for a moment on the slaught- 
ered stag, and heaved a great sigh. 

“ Mr. Sercombe,” he said, “ I would rather you had 
shot my best horse ! Are you aware, sir, that you are 
a poacher.” 

“I had supposed the appellation inapplicable to a 
gentleman ! ” answered Sercombe, with entire coolness. 
“ But by all means take me before a magistrate.” 

“You are before a magistrate.” 

“ All I have to answer then is, that I should not have 
shot the animal had I not believed myself within my 
rights.” 

“ On that very point, and on this very ground, I in- 
structed you myself ! ” said the chief. 

“ I misunderstood you.” 

“ Say rather you had not the courtesy to heed what 
I told you — had not faith enough to take the word of 
a gentleman ! And for this my poor stag has suffered.” 
He stood for some moments in conflict with himself, 
then quietly resumed. 

“ Of course, Mr. Sercombe, I have no intention of 
pushing the matter ! ” he said. 

“ I should hope not ! ” returned Sercombe scornfully. 
« I will pay whatever you choose to set on the brute.” 

It would be hard to say which was less agreeable to 
the chief — to have his stag called a brute, or be offered 
blood-money for him. 

“ Stag Ruadh priced like a bullock ! ” he said, with 
a slow smile, full of sadness ; “ the pride of every child 
in the glen! Not a gentleman in the county would 
have shot Clanruadh’s deer.” 

Sercombe was by this time feeling uncomfortable, 


258 


what’s mine’s mine. 


and it made him angry. He muttered something about 
superstition. 

“ He was taken when a calf,” the chief went on, “ and 
given to a great-aunt of mine. But when he grew up, 
he took to the hills again, and was known by his silver 
collar till he managed to rid himself of it. He shall be 
buried where he lies, and his monument shall tell how 
the stranger Sasunnach served the stag of Clanruadh ! ” 

“ Why the deuce didn’t you keep the precious mon- 
ster in a paddock, and let people know him for a tame 
animal ? ” sneered Sercombe. 

“ My poor Ruadh ! ” said the chief ; “ he was no 
tame animal! he as well as I would have preferred the 
death you have given him to such a fate. He lived 
while he lived ! I thank you for his immediate transit. 
Shot right through the heart ! Had you maimed him 
I should have been angrier.” 

Sercombe felt flattered, and, attributing the chief’s 
gentleness to a desire to please him, began to conde- 
scend. 

“Well, come now, Macruadh! ” he began; but the 
chief turned from him. 

Hector stood with his arm on Rob’s shoulder, and 
the tears rolling down his cheeks. He would not have 
wept but that the sobs of his son shook him. 

“ Rob of the Angels,” Alister said in their mother- 
tongue, “ you must make an apology to the Sasunnach 
gentleman for drawing the knife on him. That was 
wrong, if he had killed all the deer on Benruadh.” 

“ It was not for that, Macruadh,” answered Rob of 
the Angels. “ It was because he struck my father, and 
laid a better man than himself on the grass.” 

The chief turned on the Englishman. 

“ Did the old man strike you, Mr. Sercombe ? ” 


AN CABRACII MOE. 


259 


“No, by Jove! I took a little care of that! If he 
had, I would have broken every bone in his body ! ” 

“ Why did you strike him then ? ” 

“ Because he rushed at me.” 

“It was his duty to capture a poacher! — But you 
did not know he was deaf and dumb ! ” he added, as 
some excuse. 

“ The deaf makes no difference ! ” protested Rob. 
“Hector of the Stags does not fight with his hands 
like a woman ! ” 

“Well, what’s done is done!” laughed Sercombe. 
“ It wasn’t a bad shot anyhow ! ” 

“You have little to plume yourself upon, Mr. Ser- 
combe!” said the chief. “You are a good shot, but 
you need not have been so frightened at an old man as 
to knock him down! ” 

“ Come, come, Macruadh ! enough’s enough ! it’s 
time to drop this ! ” returned Sercombe. “ I can’t 
stand much more of it ! — T^ake ten pounds for the 
head ! — Come ! ” 

The chief made one great stride towards him, but 
turned away, and said, 

“ Come along, Rob ! Tell your father you must not 
go up the hill again to-night.” 

“ No, sir,” answered Rob ; “ there’s nothing now to 
go up the hill for ! Poor old Ruadh ! God rest his 
soul ! ” 

“ Amen ! ” responded the chief ; “ but say rather, 
‘ God give him room to run ! ’ ” 

“ Amen ! It is better. But,” added Rob, “ we 
must watch by the body. The foxes and hooded 
crows are gathering already — I hear them on the hills ; 
and I saw a sea-eagle as white as silver yesterday ! We 
cannot leave him till he is under God’s plaid ! ” 


260 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


“ Then one of you come and fetch food and fire,” 
said the chief. “ I will be with you early.” 

Father and son communicated in silence ; and Rob 
went with the chief. 

“ They worship the stag, these peasants, as the old 
Egyptians the bull ! ” said Sercombe to himself, walk- 
ing home full of contempt. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


THE STAG S HEAD, 


LISTER went straight to his brother’s room, his 



heart bursting with indignation. It was some- 
time before Ian could get the story from him in plain 
consecution ; every other moment he would diverge into 
fierce denunciation. 

“ Hadn’t you better tell your master what has hap- 
pened ? ” at length said Ian. “ He ought to know why 
you curse one of your fellows so bitterly.” 

Alister was dumb. For a moment he looked aghast. 

“Ian!” he said: “You think he wants to be told 
anything? I always thought you believed in his di- 
vinity ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” returned Ian, “ but do you ? How am I to 
imagine it, when you go on like that in his hearing? 
Is it so you acknowledge his presence ? ” 

“ Oh, Ian ! you don’t know how it tortures me to 
think of that interloper, the low brute, killing the big 
stag, the Macruadh stag — on my land too ! I feel ns 
if I could tear him in pieces. But for Him I would 
have killed him on the spot ! It is hard if I must not 
let off my rage even to you ! ” 

“Let it off to him, Alister; he will give you fairer 
play than your small brother ; he understands you bet- 
ter than I.” 

“ But I could not let it off to him that way ! ” 

“ Then that is not a good way. The justice that, even 


261 


262 


what’s mine’s mine. 


in imagination, would tear and destroy and avenge, may 
be justice, but it is devil’s justice. Come, begin now, 
and tell me all quietly — as if you had read it in a 
book.’’ 

“ Word for word, then, with all the imprecations ! ” 
said Alister, already a little cooler ; and Ian was soon in 
possession of the story. 

“ Now what would you have me do ? ” said the chief, 
ending a recital true to the very letter, and in a meas- 
ure calm, but at various points revealing, by the merest 
dip of the surface, the boiling of the floods beneath. 

“You must send him the head, Alister,” answered 
Ian. 

“ Send — what — w T ho — I don’t understand you, 
Ian ! ” returned the chief, bewildered. 

“ Oh, well, never mind ! ” said Ian. “ You will think 
of it presently ! ” 

And therewith he turned his face to the wall, as if he 
would go to sleep. 

It had been a thing understood betwixt the brothers, 
and that from so far back in the golden haze of child- 
hood that the beginning of it was out of sight, that, the 
moment one of them turned his back, not a word more 
was to be said, until he who thus dropped the subject, 
chose to resume it : to break this unspoken compact 
would have been to break one of the strands in the 
ancient bond of their most fast brotherhood. Alister 
therefore went at once to his room, leaving Ian loving 
him hard and praying for him with his face to the wall. 
He went as one knowing well the storm he was about 
to encounter, but never before had he had such a storm 
to meet. 

He closed the door, and sat down on the side of his 
bed like one stunned. He did not doubt, yet could 


THE STAG’S HEAD. 


263 


hardly allow in verity he believed, that Ian, his oracle, 
had told him to send the antlers of his cabrach mor , the 
late live type of his ancient crest, the pride of Clan- 
ruadh, to the vile . fellow of a Sasunnach who had sent 
out into the deep the joyous soul of the fierce, bare 
mountains. 

There were rushings to and fro in the spirit of Alis- 
ter, wild and terrible, even as those in the Valley of 
the Shadow of Death. He never closed his eyes, but 
fought with himself all the night, until the morning 
broke. Could this thing be indeed his duty ? And if 
not his duty, was he called to do it from mere bravado 
of goodness? How frightfully would not such an action 
be misunderstood by such a man. What could he take 
it for but a mean currying of favor with him ! Why 
should he move to please such a fellow ! Ian was too 
hard upon him! The more he yielded the more Ian 
demanded ! Every time it was something harder than 
the last ! And why did he turn his face to the wall ? 
Was he not fit to be argued with! Was he one that 
would not listen to reason ! He had never known Ian 
ungenerous till now ! 

But all the time there lay at his door a thing calling | 
out to be done ! The thing he did not like was always 
the thing he had to do ! he grumbled ; but this thing 
he hated doing ! It was abominable ! What ! send the 
grand head, with its horns spread wide like a half- 
moon, and leaning like oaks from a precipice — send 
it to the man that made it a dead thing! Never! It 
must not be left behind ! It must go to the grave with 
the fleet limbs ! and over it a monument should rise, at 
sight of which every friendly highlandman would say, 
Feuch an cabrach mor de Clanruadh! What a mock- 
ery of fate to be exposed for ever to the vulgar Cock- 


264 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ney gaze, the trophy of a fool, whose boast was to kill ! 
Such a noble beast ! Such a mean man ! To mutilate 
his remains for the pride of the wretch who killed him ! 
It was too horrible ! 

He thought and thought until at last he lay power- 
less to think any more. But it is not always the devil 
that enters in when a man ceases to think. God for- 
bid ! The cessation of thought gives opportunity for- 
setting the true soul thinking from another quarter. 
Suddenly Alister remembered a conversation he had 
had with Ian a day or two before. He had been saying 
to Ian that he could not understand what Jesus meant 
when he said, “ Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right 
cheek, turn to him the other also;” and was dissatis- 
fied with the way Ian had answered him. “ You must 
explain it to yourself,” Ian said. He replied, “If I 
could do that, I should not have to ask you.” “ There 
are many things,” Ian rejoined, “ — arithmetic is one 
— that can be understood only in the doing of them.” 
“ But how can I do a thing without understanding it?” 
objected Alister. “ When you have an opportunity of 
doing this very thing,” said Ian, “ do it, and see what 
will follow ! ” At the time he thought Ian was refus- 
ing to come to the point, and was annoyingly indefinite 
and illogical ; but now it struck him that here was the 
opportunity of which he had spoken. 

“ I see ! ” he said to himself. 

“ It is not want of understanding that is in the way 
now. A thing cannot look hateful and reasonable at 
the same moment ! This may be just the sort of thing 
Jesus meant! Even if I be in the right, I have a right 
to yield my right — and to Him I will yield it. That 
was why Ian turned his face to the wall : he wanted me 
to discover that here was my opportunity ! How but 


THE STAG’S HEAD. 


265 


in the name of Jesus Christ could he have dared tell 
me to forgive Ruadh’s death by sending his head to 
his murderer ! It has to be done ! I’ve got to do it ! 
Here is my chance of turning the other cheek and 
being hurt again ! What can come of it is no business 
of mine ! To return evil is just to do a fresh evil ! It 
may make the man ashamed of himself! It cannot 
hurt the stag ; it only hurts my pride, and I owe my 
pride nothing ! Why should not the fellow have what 
satisfaction he may — something to show for his shot ! 
He shall have the head. ” 

Thereupon rushed into his heart the joy of giving 
up, of deliverance from self ; and pity, to leaven his 
contempt, awoke for Sercombe. No sooner had he 
yielded his pride, than he felt it possible to love the 
man — not for anything he was, but for what he might 
and must be. 

“ God let the man kill the stag,” he said ; “ I will let 
him have the head.” 

Again and yet again swelled afresh the tide of wrath 
and unwillingness, making him feel as if he could not 
carry out his resolve ; but all the time he knew the 
thing was as good as done — absolutely determined, so 
that nothing could turn it aside. 

“To yield where one may, is the prerogative of lib- 
erty ! ” he said to himself. “ God only can give ; who 
would be his child must yield ! Abroad in the fields of 
air, as Paul and the love of God make me hope, what 
will the wind-battling Ruadh care for his old head! 
Would he not say , 4 Let the man have it ; my hour was 
come, or the Some One would not have let him kill 
me!’?” 

Thus argued the chief while the darkness endured — 
and as soon as the morning began to break, rose, took 


266 


what’s mine’s mine. 


spade and pick and great knife, and went where Hector 
and Rob were watching the slain. 

It was bitterly cold. The burn crept silent under a 
continuous bridge of ice. The grass-blades were crisp 
with frost. The ground was so hard it met iron like 
iron. 

He sent the men to get their breakfast from Nancy : 
none but himself should do the last offices for Ruadh ! 
With skilful hand he separated and laid aside the head 
in sacrifice to the living God. Then the hard earth rang 
with mighty blows of the pickaxe. The labor was se- 
vere, and long ere the grave was deep enough, Hector 
and Rob had returned; but the chief would not get 
out of it to give them any share in the work. When 
he laid hold of the body, they did not offer to help him ; 
they understood the heart of their chief. Not without 
a last pang that he could not lay the head beside it, he 
began to shovel in the frozen clods, and then at length 
allowed them to take a part. When the grave was 
full, they rolled great stones upon it, that it might not 
be desecrated. Then the chief went back to his room, 
and proceeded to prepare the head, that, as the sacri- 
fice, so should be the gift. 

“ I suppose he would like glass eyes, the ruffian ! ” 
he muttered to himself, “ but I will not have the mock- 
ery. I will fill the sockets and sew up the eyelids, and 
the face shall be as of one that sleeps.” 

Having done all, and written certain directions for 
temporary treatment, which he tied to an ear, he laid 
the head aside till the evening. 

All the day long, not a word concerning it passed 
between the brothers ; but when evening came, Alister, 
with a blue cotton handkerchief in his hand, hiding the 
head as far as the roots of the huge horns, asked Ian to 


THE STAG’S HEAD. 


267 


go for a walk. They went straight to the New House. 
Alister left the head at the door, with his compliments 
to Mr. Sercombe. 

As soon as they were out of sight of the house, Ian 
put his arm through his brother’s, but did not speak. 

“ I know now about turning the other cheek ! ” said 
Alister. “ Poor Ruadh ! ” 

“ Leave him to the God that made the great head 
and nimble feet of him,” said Ian. “ A God that did 
not care for what he had made, how should we believe 
in ! but he who cares for the dying sparrow, may be 
trusted with the dead stag.” 

“ Truly, yes,” returned Alister. 

“Let us sit down,” said Ian, “and I will sing you a 
song I made last night ; I could not sleep after yon left 
me.” 

Without reply, Alister took a stone by the wayside, 
and Ian one a couple of yards away. This was his song : 

LOVE’S HISTORY. 

Love, the baby, 

Toddled out to pluck a flower; 

One said, “ No, sir one said, “ Maybe, 

At the evening hour! ” 

Love, the boy, 

Joined llie boys and girls at play; 

But he left them half his joy 
Ere the close of day. 

Love, the youth, 

Roamed the country, lightning-laden; 

But he hurt himself, and, sooth, 

Many a man and maiden! 

Love, the man, 

Sought a service all about; 

But he would not take their plan, 

So they cast him out. 


268 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Love, the aged, 

Walking, bowed, the shadeless miles, 

Read a volume many-paged, 

Full of tears and smiles. 

Love, the weary, 

Tottered down the shelving road; 

At its foot, lo, night the starry 
Meeting him from God ! 

“Love, the holy! ” 

Sang a music in her dome, 

Sang it softly, sang it slowly, 

“ — Love is coming home! ” 

Ere the week was out, there stood above the dead 
stag a growing cairn, to this day called Cdrn o' cabrach 
mdr . It took ten men with levers to roll one of the 
boulders at its base. Men still cast stones upon it as 
they pass. 

The next morning came a note to the cottage, in 
which Sercombe thanked the Macruadh for changing 
his mind, and said that, although he was indeed glad to 
have secured such a splendid head, he would certainly 
have stalked another deer, had he known the chief set 
such store by the one in question. 

It was handed to Alister as he sat at his second break- 
fast with his mother and Ian : even in winter he was 
out of the house by six o’clock, to set his men to their 
work, and take his own share in it. He read to the end 
of the first page wdth curling lip ; the moment he turned 
the leaf, he sprang from his seat with an exclamation 
that startled his mother. 

“The hound! — I beg my good dogs’ pardon, one 
and all ! ” he cried. “ — Look at this, Ian ! See w hat 
comes of taking your advice ! ” 

“My dear fellow, I gave you no advice that had 
the least regard to the consequence of following it! 


THE STAG’S HEAD. 


269 


That was the one thing you had nothing to do with.” 

“ Read” insisted Alister, as he pranced about the 
room. “ No, don’t read the letter ; it’s -not worth 
reading. Look at the paper in it.” 

Ian looked, and saw a cheque for ten pounds. He 
burst into loud laughter. 

“Poor Ruadh’s horns! they’re hardly so long as 
their owner’s ears ! ” he said. 

“ I told you so ! ” cried the chief. 

“ No, Alister! You never suspected such a donkey ! ” 
“ What is it all about ? ” asked the mother. 

“ The wretch who shot Ruadh,” replied Alister, “ — to 
whom I gave his head, all to please Ian, — ” 

“ Alister ! ” said Ian. 

Tho chief understood, and retracted. 

“ — no, not to please Ian, but to do what Ian showed 
me was right : — I believe it was my duty ! — I hope it 
W as ! — here’s the murdering fellow sends me a cheque 
for ten pounds ! — I told you, Ian, he offered me ten 
pounds over the dead body ! ” 

“ I daresay the poor fellow was sorely puzzled what 
to do, and appealed to everybody in the house for 
advice ! ” 

“You take the cheque to represent the combined 
wisdom of the New House? ” 

“You must have puzzled them all!” persisted Ian. 
“ How could people with no principle beyond that of 
keeping to a bargain, understand you otherwise ! First, 
you perform an action such persons think degrading: 
you carry a fellow’s bag for a shilling, and then him- 
self for nothing ! Next, in the very fury of indignation 
with a man for killing the finest stag in the country on 
your meadow, you carry him home the head with your 
own hands ! It all comes of that unlucky divine notion 


270 


what’s mine’s mine. 


of yours to do good that good may come ! That shil- 
ling of Mistress Conal’s is at the root of it all ! ” 

Ian laughed again, and right heartily. The chief was 
too angry to enter into the humor of the thing. 

“ Upon my word, Ian, it is too bad of you! What 
are you laughing at ? It would become you better to 
tell me what I am to do ! Am I free to break the 
rascal’s bones ? ” 

“ Assuredly not, after that affair with the bag ! ” 

“ Oh, damn the bag ! — I beg your pardon, mother.” 
“ Am I to believe my ears, Alister ? ” 

“ What does it matter, mother ? What harm can it 
do the bag ? I wished no evil to any creature ! ” 

“ It was the more foolish.” 

“ I grant it, mother. But you don’t know what a re- 
lief it is sometimes to swear a little! You are quite 
wrong, Ian ; it all comes of giving him the head ! ” 

“ You wish you had not given it him? ” 

“ No ! ” growled Alister, as from a pent volcano. 
“You will break my ears, Alister ! ” cried the mother, 
unable to keep from laughing at the indignation in 
which he went straining through the room. 

“Think of it,” insisted Ian : “ a man like him could 
not think otherwise without a revolution of his whole 
being to which the change of the leopard’s spots would 
be nothing. What you meant, after all, was not cor- 
diality ; it was only generosity ; to which his response, 
his countercheck friendly, was an order for ten pounds ! 
— All is right between you ! ” 

“Now, really, Ian, you must not go on teasing your 
elder brother so ! ” said the mother. Alister laughed, 
and ceased fuming. 

“But I must answer the brute!” he said. “What 
am I to say to him ? ” 


THE STAG’S HEAD. 


271 


“ That you are much obliged,” replied Ian, “ and will 
have the cheque framed and hung in the hall.” 

“ Come, come ! No more of that ! ” 

“Well, then, let me answer the letter.” 

“ That is just what I wanted! ” 

Ian sat down at his mother’s table, and wrote this : 
“Dear sir, — My brother desires me to return the 
cheque which you unhappily thought it right to send 
him. Humanity is subject to mistake, but I am sorry 
for the individual who could so misunderstand his 
courtesy. I have the honor to remain, sir, your obedi- 
ent servant, Ian Macruadh.” 

As Ian guessed, the matter had been openly discussed 
at the New House, and the money was sent with the 
approval of all except the two young ladies. They had 
seen the young men in circumstances more favorable to 
the understanding of them by ordinary people, and they 
felt that they were incapable of touching the money. 
The tone of Ian’s rejection of it considerably damaged 
in their minds the prestige of Sercombe’s good looks. 

“Why didn’t the chief write the answer himself?” 
said Christian. 

“ Oh,” replied Sercombe, “ his little brother had been 
—to school and could write better! You should have 
seen the figure he cut without shoes or stockings ! ” 
Christina and Mercy exchanged glances. 

“ I will tell you,” Mercy said, “ why Mr. Ian answered 
the note : the chief had done with you ! ” 

“ Or,” suggested Christina, “ the chief was in such a 
a rage that he would write nothing but a challenge.” 

“ I wish to goodness he had ! It would have given 
me the chance of giving the clodhopper a lesson.” 

“ For sending you the finest stag’s head and horns in 
the country ! ” remarked Mercy. 


272 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I shot the stag ! Perhaps you don’t believe I shot 
him ? ” 

“ I am sure no one else did ! The chief would have 
died sooner ! ” 

“ I am sick of your chief ! ” said Christian. “ A pretty 
chief without a penny to bless himself ! A chief, and 
glad of the job of carrying a carpet-bag! You’ll be 
calling him my lord, next ! ” 

“ He may at least write Baronet after his name when 
he pleases,” returned Mercy. 

“ A likely story ! Why don’t he then ? ” 

“Because,” answered Christina, “both his father and 
himself were ashamed of how the first baronet got his 
title. It had to do with the sale of a part of the 
property, and they counted the land the clan’s as well as 
the chief’s. They regarded it as an act of treachery to 
put the clan in the power of a stranger, and the chief 
looks on the title as a brand of shame.” 

“I don’t question the treachery,” said Christian. 
“ A highlander is treacherous ! ” 

Christina had asked a friend in Glasgow to find out 
for her anything known among the lawyers concerning 
the Macruadhs, and what she had just recounted was a 
part of the information she had thereby received. 

Thenceforward silence covered the whole transaction. 
Sercombe neither returned the head, sent an apology, 
nor recognized the gift. That he had shot the stag was 
enough ! 

But these things wrought shaping the idea of the 
brothers in the minds of the sisters, and they were be- 
ginning to feel a strange confidence in them, such as 
they had never had in men before. A curious little 
halo began to shimmer about the heads .of the young 
men in the picture-gallery of the girls’ fancy. Not the 


THE STAG S HEAD. 


2TB 


less, however, did they regard them as enthusiasts, un- 
fitted to this world, incapable of self-protection, too 
good to live — in a word, unpractical ! Because a man 
would live according to the laws of his being as well as 
of his body, obeying simple, imperative, essential human 
necessity, his fellows forsooth call him unpractical! 
Of the idiotic delusions of the children of this world, 
that of being practical is one of the most ludicrous. 

Here is a translation made by Ian, of one of Alister’s 
Gaelic songs. 

THE SUN’S DAUGHTER. 

A drop of water 
In the gold fire 

Of a sun’s daughter 
Was laughing to her sire;' 

And from all the flowers about, 

That never toiled or spun, 

The soul of each looked out, 

Clear laughing to the sun. 

I saw them unfolding 
Their hearts every one! 

Every soul holding 
Within it the sun! 

But all the sun’s mirrors 
Vanished anon; 

And their flowers, mere stareri, 

Grew dry in the sun. 

“ My soul is but water, 

Shining and gone ! 

She is but the daughter,” 

I said, “ of the sun! ” 

My soul sat her down 
In a deep-shaded gloom; 

Her glory was flown, 

Her earth was a tomb, 


274 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


Till night came and caught her, 

And then out she shone ; 

And I knew her no daughter 
Of that shining sun — 

Till night came down and taught her 
Of a glory yet unknown ; 

And I knew my.soul the daughter 
Of a sun behind the sun. 

Back, back to him that wrought her, 
My soul shall haste and run; 

Straight back to him, his daughter, 
Te the sun behind the sun. 








CHAPTER XXVI. 


ANNIE OF THE SHOP. 



T the dance in the chief’s barn, Sercombe had 


paired with Annie of the shop oftener than with 
any other of the girls. That she should please him at 
all, was something in his favor, for she was a simple, 
modest girl — with the nicest feeling of the laws of 
intercourse, the keenest perception both of what is in 
itself right, and what is becoming in the commonest 


relation. She understood by a fine moral instinct what 


respect was due to her, and what respect she ought to 
show, and was therefore in the truest sense well-bred. 
There are women whom no change of circumstances 
would cause to alter their manners even a hair’s-breadth : 
such are God’s ladies ; there are others in whom any 
outward change will reveal the vulgarity of a nature 
more conscious of claim than of obligation. 

I need not say that? Sercombe, though a man of what 
is called education, was but conventionally a gentleman. 
\If in doubt whether a man be a gentleman or not, hear 
him speak to a woman he regards as his inferior: his 
very tone will probably betray himself. A true gentle- 
man, that is a true man, will be the more carefully re- 
spectful. Sercombe was one of those who regard them- 
selves as respectable because they are prudent ; whether 
they are human, and their brother and sister’s keeper, 
they have never asked themselves. 

To some minds neither innocent nor simple, there is 


275 


\ 



five’s mine. 


yet something attractive in innocence and simplicity. 
Perhaps it gives them a pleasing sense of their supe- 
riority — a background against which to rejoice in their 
liberty, while their pleasure in it helps to obscure the 
gulf between what the man would fain hold himself to 
be, and what in reality he is. There is no spectre so 
terrible as the unsuspected spectre of a man’s own self ; 
it is noisome enough to the man who is ever trying to 
better it : what must it appear to the man who sees it 
for the first time ! J Sercombe’s self was ugly, and he 
did not know it ; he thought himself an exceptionally 
fine fellow. No one knows what a poor creature he is 
but the man who makes it his business to be true. The 
only mistake worse than thinking well of himself, is for 
a man to think God takes no interest in him. 

One evening, sorely in lack of amusement, Sercombe 
wandered out into a starlit-night, and along the road 
to the village. There he went into the general shop, 
where sat Annie behind the counter. Now the first 
attention he almost always paid to a woman, that is 
when he cared and dared, was a compliment — the 
fungus of an empty head or a false heart; but with 
Annie he took no such initiative liberty, and she, accus- 
tomed to respectful familiarity from the chief and his 
brother, showed no repugnance to his friendly approach. 

“ Upon my word, Miss Annie,” said Sercombe, ven- 
turing at length a little, “ you were the best dancer on 
the floor that night ! ” 

“ Oh, Mr. Sercombe ! how can you say so — with such 
dancers as the young ladies of your party ! ” 

“ They dance well,” he returned, “ but not so well as 
you.” 

“ It all depends on the dance — whether you are used 
to it or not.” 


ANNIE OF THE SHOP. 


277 


“No, by Jove ! If you had a lesson or two such as 
they have been having all their lives, you would dance 
out of their sight in the twinkling of an eye. If I had you 
for a partner every night for a month, you would dance 
better than any woman I have ever seen — off the stage 

— any lady, that is.” 

The grosser the flattery, the surer with a country girl, 
he thought. But there was that in his tone, besides 
the freedom of sounding her praises in her own ears, 
which was unpleasing to Annie’s ladyhood and she held 
her peace. 

“ Come out and have a turn,” he said thereupon. “ It 
is lovely star-light. Have you had a walk to-day ? ” 

“ No, I have not,” answered Annie, casting how to 
get rid of him. 

“You wrong your beauty by keeping to the house.” 

“My beauty,” said Annie, flushing, “may look after 
itself ; I have nothing to do with it — neither, excuse 
me, sir, have you.” 

“ Why, who has a right to be offended with the truth ! 
A man can’t help seeing your face is as sweet as your 
voice, and your figure, as revealed by your dancing, a 
match for the two ! ” 

“ I will call my mother,” said Annie, and left the 
shop. 

Sercombe did not believe she would, and waited. He 
took her departure for a mere coquetry. But when a 
rather grim, handsome old woman appeared, asking him 

— it took the most of her English — “ What would you 
be wanting, sir?” as if he had just come into the shop, 
he found himself awkwardly situated. He answered, 
with more than his usual politeness, that, having had 
the pleasure of dancing with her daughter at the chief’s 
ball, he had taken the liberty of looking in to inquire 


278 


what’s mine’s mine. 


after her health ; whereupon, perplexed, the old woman 
in her turn called Annie, who came at once, but kept 
close to her mother. Sercombe began to tell them about 
a tour he had made in Canada, for he had heard they 
had friends there ; but the mother did not understand 
him, and Annie more and more disliked him. He soon 
saw that at least he had better say nothing more about 
a walk, and took himself off, not a little piqued at 
repulse from a peasant-girl in the most miserable shop 
he had ever entered. 

Two days after, he went again — this time to buy 
tobacco. Annie was short with him, but he went yet 
again and yet sooner: these primitive people objected 
to strangers, he said ; accustomed to him she would be 
friendly! he would not rest until he had gained some 
footing of favor with her ! Annie grew heartily offended 
with the man. She also feared what might be said if 
he kept coming to the shop — where Mistress Conal had 
seen him more than once, and looked poison at him. 
For her own sake, for the sake of Lachlan, and for the 
sake of the chief she resolved to make the young father 
of the ancient clan acquainted with her trouble. It 
was on the day after his rejection of the ten-pound note 
that she found her opportunity. 

“ Was he rude to you, Annie?” asked the chief. 

“No, sir — too polite, I think: he must have seen I 
did not want his company. — I shall feel happier now, 
you know.” 

“ I will see to it,” said the chief. 

“ I hope it will not put you to any trouble, sir ! ” 

“ What am I here for, Annie ! Are you not my 
clanswoman ! Is not Lachlan my foster-brother ! — He 
will trouble you no more, I think.” 

The conversation took place in the. shop ; as Alister 


ANNIE OF TIIE SHOP. 


279 


walked home, he met Sercombe, and after a greeting 
not very cordial on either side, said thus : 

“ I should be obliged to you, Mr. Sercombe, if you 
would send for anything you want, instead of going to 
the shop yourself. Annie Macruadh is not the sort of 
girl you may have sometimes found in such a position, 
and you would not wish to make her uncomfortable ! ” 

Sercombe was ashamed, I think ; for the refuge of 
the fool when dissatisfied with himself, is offence with 
his neighbor, and Sercombe was angry. 

“ Are you her father — or her lover ? ” he said. 

“ She has a right to my protection — and claims it,” 
rejoined Alister quietly. 

“ Protection ! Oh ! What the devil would you pro- 
tect her from?” 

“ From you, Mr. Sercombe.” 

“ Protect her, then.” 

“ I will. Force yourself on that young woman’s no- 
tice again, and you will have to do with me.” 

They parted. Alister went home. Sercombe went 
straight to the shop. 

He was doing what he could to recommend himself 
to Christina ; but wdiether from something antagonistic 
between them, or from unwillingness on her part to 
yield her position of advantage and sober liberty, she 
had not given him the encouragement he thought he 
deserved. He believed himself in love with her, and 
had told her so ; but the truest love such a man can feel, 
is a poor thing. He admired, and desired, and thought 
he loved her beauty, and that he called being in love 
with her ! He did not think much about her money, 
but had she been brought to poverty, he would at least 
have hesitated about marrying her. 

In the family he was regarded as her affianced, al- 


280 


what’s mine’s mine. 


though she did not treat him as such, but merely went 
on bewitching him, pleased that at least he was a man 
of the world. 

While one is yet only in love , the real person, the 
love-capable, lies covered with the rose-leaves of a 
thousand sleepy-eyed dreams, and through them come 
to the dreamer but the barest hints of the real person 
of whom is the dream. A thousand fancies fly out, ap- 
proach, and cross, but never meet; the man and the 
woman are pleased, not with each other, but each with 
the fancied other. The merest common likings are 
taken for signs of a wonderful sympathy, of a radical 
unity — of essential capacity, therefore, of loving and 
being loved ; at a hundred points their souls seem to 
touch, but their contacts are the merest brushings as of 
insect-antennae ; the real man, the real woman, is all the 
time asleep under the rose-leaves. Happy is the rare 
fate of the true — to wake and come forth and meet in 
the majesty of the truth, in the image of God, in their 
very being, in the power of that love which alone is 
being ! They love, not this and that about each other, 
but each the very other — a love as essential to reality, 
to truth, to religion as the love of the very God. 
Where such love is, let the differences of taste, the 
unfitness of temperament, be what they may, the two 
must by and by be thoroughly one. 

Sercombe saw no reason why a gentleman should not 
amuse himself with any young woman he pleased. 
What was the chief to him ! Any how he was not his 
chief ! If he was a big man in the eyes of his little 
clan, he was nothing much in the eyes of Mr. Sercombe 1 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE ENCOUNTER. 


NXIE came again to her chief, with the complaint 



-CA- that Mr. Sercombe persisted in his attentions. 
Alister went to see her home. They had not gone far 
when Sercombe overtook them, and passed. The chief 
told Annie to go on, and called after him, 

“I must have a word or two with you, Mr. Ser- 
combe ! ” 

He turned and came up with long steps, his hands in 
his coat-pockets. 

“ I warned you to leave that girl alone ! ” said the 
chief. 

“ And I warn you now,” returned Sercombe, “to leave 
me alone ! ” 

“ I am bound to take care of her.” 

“ And I of myself.” 

“ Xot at her expense ! ” 

“ At yours, then ! ” answered Sercombe, provoking an 
encounter ! to which he was more inclined that he saw 
Ian coming slowly up the ridge. 

“You have chosen then to forget the warning I gave 
you ? ” said the chief restraining his anger. 

“ I make a point of forgetting what I do not think 
worth remembering.” 

“ I forget nothing ! ” 

“ I congratulate you.” 

“ And I mean to help your memory, Mr. Sercombe.” 


281 


282 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Mr. Macruadh ! ” returned Sercombe, “ if you ex- 
pect me not to open my liy>s to any hussy in the glen 
without your leave, — ” 

His utterance was cut short by a box on the ear from 
the open hand of the chief. He would not use his fist 
without warning, but such a word applied to any honest 
woman of his clan, demanded instant recognition. 

Sercombe fell back a step, white with rage, then dart- 
ing forward, struck straight at the front of his adver- 
sary. Alister avoided the blow, but soon found himself 
a mere child at such play with the Englishman. He 
had not again touched Sercombe, and was himself bleed- 
ing fast, when Ian came up running. 

“ Damn you ! come on ! ” cried Sercombe when he 
saw him ; “ I can do the precious pair of you ! ” 

“ Stop ! ” cried Ian, laying hold of his brother from 
behind, pinning his arms to his sides, wheeling him 
round and taking his place. “Give over, Alister,” he 
went on. “You can’t do it, and I won’t see you pun- 
ished when he deserves it. Go and sit there, and look 
on.” 

“You can’t do it, Ian ! ” returned Alister. “Let me 
at him again ! One blow will serve. Only he jumps 
like a goat that I can’t hit him ! ” 

“You are blind with blood ! ” said Ian, in a tone that 
gave Sercombe expectation of too easy a victory. “ Sit 
down there, I tell you ! ” 

“ Mind, I don’t give in ! ” said Alister, as he went to 
the bank at the roadside. “ If he speak once again to 
Annie, I swear I will make him repent it ! ” 

Sercombe laughed insultingly. 

“Mr. Sercombe,” said Ian, “had we not better put 
off our bout till to-morrow V You have fought already ! ” 

“ Damn you for a coward, come on ! ” 


THE ENCOUNTER. 


283 


“Would you not like to take your breath for a 
moment?” 

“ I have all I am likely to need.” 

“It is only fair,” persisted Ian, “to warn you that 
you will not find my knowledge on the level of my 
brother’s ! ” 

“Shut up,” said Sercombe savagely, “and come on.” 

For a few rounds Ian seemed to Alister to be giving 
Sercombe time to recover his wind ; to Sercombe he 
seemed to be saving his own wind. He stood to defend, 
and did not attempt to put in a blow. 

“ Mr. Sercombe,” he said at length, “ you cannot serve 
me as you did my brother.” 

“ I see that well enough. Come on ! ” 

“ Will you give your word to leave Annie of the shop 
alone ? ” 

Sercombe answered with a scornful imprecation. 

“ I warn you again, I am no novice in this business ! ” 
said Ian. 

Sercombe struck out but did not reach his antagonist. 

The fight lasted but a moment longer. As his adver- 
sary drew back from a failed blow, Alister saw Ian’s 
eyes flash, and his left arm shoot out, as it seemed, to 
twice its length. Sercombe neither reeled nor staggered 
but fell supine, and lay motionless. They were by his 
side in a moment. 

“I struck too hard ! ” said Ian. 

“ Who can think about that in a fight ! ” returned 
Alister. 

“ I could have helped it well enough, and a better 
man would. Something shot through me — I hope it 
wasn’t hatred; I am sure it was anger — and the man 
went down ! What if the devil struck the blow ! ” 

“Nonsense, Ian ! ” said Alister, as they raised him to 


284 


what’s mine’s mine. 


carry him to the cottage. “It was pure indignation, 
and nothing to blame in it ! ” 

“ I wish I could be sure of that ! ” 

They had not gone far before he began to come to. 

“What are you about?” he said feebly but angrily. 
“Set me down.” 

They did so. He staggered to the roadside, and 
leaned against the bank. 

“ What’s been the row ? ” he asked. “ Oh, I remem- 
ber ! — Well, you’ve had the best of it ! ” 

He held out his hand in a vague sort of way, and the 
gesture invaded their soft hearts. Each took the hand. 

“I was all right about the girl though,” said Ser- 
combe. “ I didn’t mean her any harm.” 

“I don’t think you did,” answered Alister; “and I 
am sure you could have done her none ; but the girl did 
not like it.” 

“ There is not a girl of the clan, or in the neighbor- 
hood, for whom my brother would not have done the 
same — or I either,” said Iaii. 

“You’re a brace of woodcocks!” cried Sercombe. 
“It’s well you’re not out in the world. You w r ould be 
in hot water from morning to night. I can’t think how 
the devil you get on at all ! ” 

“ Get on ! Where ? ” asked Ian with a curious smile. 

“Come now! You’re not such fools as you want to 
look ! A man must make a place for himself somehow 
in the world ! ” 

He rose, and they walked in the direction of the 
cottage. 

“ There is a better thing than that ! ” said Ian. 

“What?” 

“ To get clean out of it ! ” 

“ What ! cut your throats ? ” 


THE ENCOUNTER. 


285 


“I meant that to get out of the world clean was bet- 
ter than to get on in it ! ” 

“I don’t understand you. I don’t choose to think 
the man able to thrash me a downright idiot ! ” growled 
Sercombe. 

“What you call success,” rejoined Ian, “we count 
not worth a thought. Look at our clan ! it is but a 
type of the world itself. Everything is passing away. 
We believe in the kingdom of heaven.” 

“Come, come! fellows like you must know that’s all 
bosh ! Nobody nowadays — nobody with any brains — 
believes such rot ! ” 

“We believe in Jesus Christ,” said Ian, “and are 
determined to do what he will have us do, and take our 
orders from nobody else.” 

“ I don’t understand you ! ” 

“ I know you don’t. You cannot until you set about 
changing your whole way of life.” 

“Oh, be damned! what an idea! a sneaking, impos- 
sible idea ! ” 

“As to its being an impossible idea, we hold it, and 
live by it. How absurd to you it must seem, I know 
perfectly. But we don’t live in your world, and you 
do not see the light of ours.” 

“‘There is a world beyond the stars !’ — Well, there 
may be ; I know nothing about it; I only know there is 
one on this side of them, — a very decent sort of world 
too ! I mean to make the best of it ! ” 

“ And have not begun yet ! ” 

“ Indeed I have ! I deny myself nothing. I live as 
I was made to live.” 

“ If you were not made to obey your conscience, or 
despise yourself, you are differently made from us, and 
no communication is possible between us. We must 


286 


what’s mine’s mine. 


wait until what differences a man from a beast make 
its appearance in you.” 

“You are polite ! ” 

“ You have spoken of us as you think ; now we speak 
of you as we think. Taking your representation of 
yourself, you are in the condition of the lower animals, 
for you claim inclination as the law of your life.” 

“ My beast is better than your man ! ” 

“You mean you get more of the good of life!” 

“Right! Ido.” 

The brothers exchanged a look and smile. 

“But suppose,” resumed Ian, “the man we have 
found in us should one day wake up in you ! Suppose 
he should say, 4 Why did you make a beast of me ? ’ ! 
It will not be easy to answer him ! ” 

“That’s all moonshine! Things are as you take 
them.” 

“ So said Lady Macbeth till she took to walking in 
her sleep, and couldn’t get rid of the smell of the 
blood ! ” 

Sercombe said no more. He was silent with disgust 
at the nonsense of it all. 

They reached the door of the cottage. Alister in- 
vited him to walk in. He drew back, and would have 
excused himself. 

“ You had better lie down a while,” said Alister. 

“You shall come to my room,” said Ian. “ We shall 
meet nobody.” 

Sercombe yielded, for he felt queer. He threw him- 
self on Ian’s bed, and in a few minutes was fast asleep. 

When he woke, he had a cup of tea, and went away 
little the worse. The laird could not show himself for 
several days. 

After this Annie had no further molestation. But 


THE ENCOUNTER. 


287 


indeed the young men’s time was almost up — which 
was quite as well, for Annie of the shop, after turning 
a corner of the road, had climbed the hill-side, and seen 
all that passed. The young ladies, hearing contradictory 
statements, called upon Annie of the shop to learn the 
truth, and the intercourse with her that followed was 
not without influence on them. Through Annie they 
saw further into the character of the brothers, who, if 
they advocated things too fine for the world the girls 
had hitherto known, did things also of which it would 
by no means have approved. They valued that world 
and its judgment not a straw ! 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


A LESSOX. 


LL the gentlemen at the New House left it to- 



gether, and its ladies were once more abandoned 
to the society of Nature, who said little to any of them. 
For, though she recognized her grandchildren, and did 
what she could for them, it was now time they should 
make some move towards acquaintance with her. A 
point comes when she must stand upon her dignity, for 
it is great. If you would hear her wonderful, or see 
her marvellous treasures, you must not trifle with her ; 
you must not talk as if you could rummage her drawers 
and cabinets as you pleased. You must believe in her; 
you must reverence her; else, although she is every- 
where about the house, you may not meet her from the 
beginning of one year to the end of another. 

To allude to any aspect of nature in the presence of 
the girls was to threaten to bore them : and I heartily 
confess to being bored myself with common talk about 
scenery: but these ladies appeared unaware of the 
least expression on the face of their grandmother. 
Doubtless they received some good from the aspect of 
things — that they could not help there ; Grannie’s hid- 
den, and therefore irresistible power was in operation ; 
but the moment they had their thoughts directed to 
the world around them, they began to gape inwardly. 
Even the trumpet and shawm of her winds, the stately 
march of her clouds, and the torrent-rush of her waters, 


288 


A LESSON. 


289 


were to them poor facts, no vaguest embodiment of 
truths eternal. It was small wonder then that verse 
of any worth should be to them but sounding brass and 
clanging cymbals. What they called society , its ways 
and judgments, its decrees and condemnations, its 
fashions and pomps and shows, false, unjust, ugly, was 
nearly all they cared for. The truth of things, with- 
out care for which man or woman is the merest puppet, 
had hitherto been nothing to them. To talk of Nature 
was sentimental. To talk of God was both irreverent 
and ill-bred. Wordsworth was an old woman ; St. 
Paul an evangelical churchman. They saw no feature 
of any truth, but, like all unthinkers, wrapped the 
words of it in their own foolishness, and then sneered 
at them. They were too much of ladies, however, to 
do it disagreeably ; they only smiled at the foolish 
neighbor who believed things they were too sensible to 
believe. It must, however, be said for them, that they 
had not yet refused anything worth believing — as pre- 
sented to them. They had not yet actually looked 
upon any truth and refused it. They were indeed not 
yet true enough in themselves, to suspect the presence 
of either a truth or a falsehood. 

A thaw came, and the ways were bad, and they 
found the time hang yet heavier on their unaided 
hands. An intercourse by degrees established itself 
between Mrs. Macruadh and the well-meaning, hand- 
some, smiling Mrs. Palmer, rendering it natural for the 
girls to go rather frequently to the cottage. They 
made themselves agreeable to the mother, and the law 
of her presence showed to better advantage. With 
their love of literature, it was natural also that the 
young men should at such times not only talk about 
books, but occasionally read for their entertainment 


290 


what’s mine’s mine. 


from some loved author; so that now, for the first 
time in their lives, the young ladies were brought 
under direct teaching of a worthy sort — they had had 
but a mockery of it at school and church — and a little 
light began to soak through their unseeking eyes. 
Among many others, however, less manifest, one ob- 
struction to their progress lay in the fact that Chris- 
tina, whose perception in some directions was quick 
enough, would always make a dart at the comical side 
of anything that could be comically turned, so dis- 
turbing upon occasion the whole spiritual atmosphere 
about some delicate epiphany : this to both Alister and 
Ian was unbearable. She offended chiefly in respect 
of Wordsworth — who had not humor enough always 
to perceive what seriously meant expression might sug- 
gest a ludicrous idea. 

One time, reading from the Excursion, Ian came to 
the verse — not to be found, I think, in later editions — 

Perhaps it is not he but some one else : — 

“ Awful idea ! ” exclaimed Christina, with sepulchral 
tone ; — “ ‘ some one else ! ’ It makes me shudder ! 
Think of it ! Who might it not have been ! ” 

Ian closed the book, and persistently refused to read 
more that day. 

Another time he was reading, in illustration of some- 
thing, Wordsworth’s poem, “To a Skylark,” the earlier 
of the two with that title, when he came to the unfor- 
tunate line, — “ Happy, happy liver ! ” — 

“ Oh, I am glad to know that ! ” cried Christina. “ I 
always thought the poor lark must have a bad diges- 
tion — he was up so early ! ” 

Ian refused to finish the poem, although Mercy 
begged hard. 


A LESSON. 


291 


The next time they came, he proposed to “read 
something in Miss Palmer’s style,” and took up a vol- 
ume of Hood, and, avoiding both his serious and the 
best of his comic poems, turned to the worst he could 
find. Then he read a vulgar rime about an execution, 
and other offences of the sort, pretending to be amused 
largely sometimes, making fiat jokes of his own, and 
elaborately explaining where was no occasion. 

“ Ian ! ” said his mother at length ; “ have you bid 
farewell to senses ? ” 

“No, mother,” he answered; “it is the merest con- 
sequence of the way you brought us up.” 

“ I don’t understand that ! ” she returned. 

“You always taught us to do the best we could for 
our visitors. So, when I fail to interest them, I try to 
amuse them.” 

“But you need not make a fool of yourself! ” ' 

“ It is better to make a fool of myself, than let Miss 
Palmer make a fool of — a great man ! ” 

“ Mr. Ian,” said Christina, “ it is not of yourself but 
of me you have been making a fool. — But I deserved 
it ! ” she added, and burst into tears. 

« Miss Palmer,” said Ian, “ I will drop my foolish- 
ness, if you will drop your fun.” 

“ I will,” answered Christina. 

And Ian read them the poem beginning — 

Three years she grew in sun and shower. 

Scoffing at what is beautiful, is not necessarily a sign 
of evil ; it may only indicate stupidity or undevelop- 
ment : the beauty is not perceived. But blame is often 
present in prolonged undevelopment. Surely no one 
habitually obeying his conscience would long be left 
without a visit from some shape of the beautiful ! 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


NATURE. 

T HE girls had every liberty; their mother seldom 
interfered. Herself true to her own dim horn-lan- 
tern, she had confidence in the discretion of her daugh- 
ters, and looked for no more than discretion. Hence 
an amount of intercourse was possible between them 
and the young men, which must have grown to a gen- 
uine intimacy had they inhabited even a neighboring 
sphere of conscious life. 

Almost unknown to herself, a change, however, for 
the better had begun in Mercy. She had not yet laid 
hold of, had not yet perceived any truth ; but she had 
some sense of the blank where truth ought to be. It 
was not a sense that truth was lacking; it was only a 
sense that something was not in her which was in those 
men. A nature such as hers, one that had not yet sinned 
against the truth was not one long to frequent such a 
warm atmosphere of live truth, without speedy approach 
to the hour when it must chip its shell, open its eyes, 
and acknowledge a world of duty around it. 

One lovely star-lit night of keen frost, the two moth- 
ers were sitting by a red peat-fire in the little drawing- 
room of the cottage, and Ian was talking to the girls 
over some sketches he had made in the north, when the 
chief came in, bringing with him an air of sharp exhila- 
ration, and proposed a walk. 

“ Come and have a taste of star-light ! ” he said. 

292 


NATURE. 


293 


The girls rose at once, and were ready in a minute. 
The chief was walking between the two ladies, and Ian 
was a few steps in front, his head bent as in thought. 
Suddenly, Mercy saw him spread out his arms toward 
the starry vault, with his face to its serrated edge of 
mountain-tops. The feeling, almost the sense of another 
presence awoke in her, and as quickly vanished. The 
thought, Was he a pantheist ? , took its place. Had she 
not surprised him in an act of worship? In that wide 
outspreading of the lifted arms, was he not worshipping 
the whole, the Pan ? Sky and stars and mountains and 
sea were his God ! She walked aghast, forgetful of a 
hundred things she had heard him say that might have 
settled the point. She had, during the last day or two, 
been reading an article in which pantheism was once 
and again referred to with more horror than definite- 
ness. Recovering herself a little, she ventured ap- 
proach to the subject. 

“ Macruadh,” she said, “Mr. Ian and you often say 
things about nature that I cannot understand : I wish 
you would tell me what you mean by it.” 

“By what?” asked Alister. 

“ By nature ,” answered Mercy. “ I hfeard Mr. Ian 
say the other night that he did not like Nature to take 
liberties with him ; you said she might take what liber- 
ties with you she pleased ; then you went on talking so 
that I could not understand a word either of you said ! ” 

While she spoke, Ian had turned and rejoined them, 
and they were now walking in a line, Mercy between 
the two men, and Christina on Ian’s right. The broth- 
ers looked at each other : it would be hard to make her 
understand just that example ! Something more rudi- 
mentary must prepare the way ! Silence fell for a 
moment, and then Ian said, 


-V 


294 what’s mine’s mine. 


“We mean by nature every visitation of the outside 
world through our senses.” 

“ More plainly, please, Mr. Ian ! You cannot imagine 
how stupid I feel when you are talking your thinks , as 
once I heard a child call them.” 

“ I mean by nature , then, all that you see and hear 
and smell and taste and feel of the things round about 
you.” 

“ If that be all you mean, why should you make it 
seem so difficult ? ” 

“But that is not all. We mean the things them- 
selves only for the sake of what they say to us. As 
our sense of smell brings us news of fields far off, so 
those fields, or even the smell only that comes from 
them, tells us of things, meanings, thoughts, intentions 
beyond them, and embodied in them.” 

“ And that is why you speak of Nature as a person ?” 
asked Mercy. 

“Whatever influences us must be a person. But 
God is the only real person, being in himself, and with- 
out help from anybody; and so we talk even of the 
world which is but his living garment, as if that were 
a person ; and we call it she as if it were a woman, be- 
cause so many of God’s loveliest influences come to us 
through her. She always seems to me a beautiful old 
grandmother.” 

“But there now! when you talk of her influences, 
and the liberties she takes, I do not know what you 
mean. She seems to do and be something to you which 
certainly she does not and is not to me. I cannot tell 
what to make of it. I feel just as when our music- 
master was talking away about thorough bass : I could 
not get hold, head or tail, of what the man was after, 
and we all agreed there was no sense in it. Now I 


NATURE. 


295 


begin to suspect that there must have been too much ! ” 
“ There is no fear of you ! ” said Ian to himself. 

“ My heart ^pld me the truth about you ! ” thought 
Alister jubilant. “Now we shall have talk ! ” 

“I think I can let you see into it, Miss Mercy,” said 
Ian. “ Imagine for a moment how it would be if, in- 
stead of having a roof like ‘ this most excellent canopy 
the air, this brave o’erhanging, this majestical roof, 

fretted with golden fire,’ ” 

“ Are you making the words, or saying them out of a 
book ? ” interrupted Mercy. 

“ Ah ! you don’t know Hamlet ? How rich I should 
feel myself if I had the first reading of it before me 
like you ! — But imagine how different it would have 
been if, instead of such a roof, we had only clouds, 
hanging always down, like the flies in a theatre, within 
a yard or two of our heads ! ” 

Mercy was silent for a moment, then said, 

“ It would be horribly wearisome.” 

“ It would indeed be wearisome ! But how do you 
think it would affect your nature, your being? ” 

Mercy held the peace which is the ignorant man’s 
wisdom. 

“We should have known nothing of astronomy,” 
said Christina. 

“True; and the worst would have been, that the 
soul would have had no astronomy — no notion of 
heavenly things.” 

“ There you leave me out again ! ” said Mercy. 

“I mean,” said Ian, “that it would have had no 
sense of outstretching, endless space, no feeling of 
heights above, and depths beneath. The idea of space 
would not have come awake in it.” 

“ I understand ! ” said Christina. “ But I do not see 


296 


what’s mine’s mine. 


that we should have been much the worse off. Why 
should we have the idea of more than we want? So 
long as we have room I do not see what space matters 
to us ! ” 

“Ah, but when the soul wakes up, it needs all space 
for room ! A limit of thousands of worlds will not con- 
tent it. Mere elbow-room will not do when the soul 
wakes up ! ” 

“ Then my soul is not waked up yet ! ” rejoined Chris- 
tina with a laugh. 

Ian did not reply, and Christina felt that he accepted 
the proposition, absurd as it seemed to herself. 

“ But there is far more than that,” he resumed. 
“ What notion could you have had of majesty, if the 
heavens seemed scarce higher than the earth? what 
feeling of the grandeur of him we call God, of his illim- 
itation in goodness ? For space is the body to the idea 
of liberty. Liberty is — God and the souls that love ; 
these are the limitless, room the space, in which 
thoughts, the souls of things, have their being. If there 
were no holy mind, then no freedom, no spiritual space, 
therefore no thoughts ; just as, if there were no space, 
there could be no things.” 

Ian saw that not even Alister was following him, and 
changed bis key. 

“ Look up,” he said, “ and tell me what you see. — 
What is the shape over us?” 

“ It is a vault,” replied Christina. 

“ A dome — is it not ? ” said Mercy. 

“ Yes ; a vault or a dome, recognizable at the mo- 
ment mainly by its shining points. This dome we un- 
derstand to be the complement or completing part of a 
corresponding dome on the other side of the world. It 
follows that we are in the heart of a hollow sphere of 


NATUEE. 


297 


loveliest blue, spangled with light. Now the sphere is 
the one perfect geometrical form. Over and round us 
then we have the one perfect shape. I do not say it is 
put there for the purpose of representing God ; I say it 
is there of necessity because of its nature, and its nature 
is its relation to God. It is of God’s thinking ; and 
that half sphere above men’s heads, with influence end- 
lessly beyond the reach of their consciousness, is the 
beginning of all revelation of him to men. They must 
begin with that. It is the simplest as well as most ex- 
ternal likeness of him, while its relation to him goes so 
deep that it represents things in his very nature that 
nothing else could.” 

“You bewilder me,” said Mercy. “ I cannot follow 
you. I am not fit for such high things ! ” 

“ I will go on ; you will soon begin to see what I 
mean. I know what you are fit for better than you do 
yourself, Miss Mercy. — Think then how it would be if 
this blue sky were plainly a solid. Men of old believed 
it a succession of hollow spheres, one outside the other ; 
it is hardly a wonder they should have had little gods. 
No matter how high the vault of the inclosing sphere ; 
limited at all it could not declare the glory of God, it 
could only show his handiwork. In our day it is a 
sphere only to the eyes ; it is a foreshortening of infini- 
tude that it may enter our sight ; there is no imagining 
of a limit to it ; it is a sphere only in this, that in no 
one direction can we come nearer to its circumference 
than in another. This infinite sphere, I say then, or, if 
you like it better, this spheric infinitude, is the only fig- 
ure, image, emblem, symbol, fit to begin us to know 
God ; it is an idea incomprehensible ; we can only be- 
lieve in it. In like manner God cannot by searching 
be found out, cannot be grasped by any mind, yet is 


298 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ever before us, the one we can best know, the one we 
must know, the one we cannot help knowing ; for his 
end in giving us being is that his humblest creature 
should at length possess himself, and be possessed by 
him.” 

“ I think I begin,” said Mercy, — and said no more. 

“ If it were not for the outside world,” resumed Ian, 
“ we should have no inside world to understand things 
by. Least of all could we understand God without 
these millions of sights and sounds and scents and mo- 
tions, weaving their endless harmonies. They come out 
from his heart to let us know a little of what is in it ! ” 

Alister had been listening hard. He could not origi- 
nate such things, but he could understand them ; and 
his delight in them proved them his own, although 
his brother had sunk the shaft that laid open their lode. 

“ I never heard you put a thing better, Ian ! ” he 
said. 

“ You gentlemen,” said Mercy, “ seem to have a 
place to think in that I don’t know how to get into ! 
Could you not open your church-door a little wider to 
let me in ? There must be room for more than two ! ” 

She was looking up at Alister, not so much afraid of 
him ; Ian was to her hardly of this world. In her eyes 
Alister saw something that seemed to reflect the star- 
light ; but it might have been a luminous haze about 
the waking stars of her soul ! 

“ My brother has always been janitor to me,” replied 
Alister ; “ I do not know how to open any door. But 
here no doors need to be opened ; you have just to step 
straight into the temple of nature, among all the good 
people there worshipping.” 

“ There ! that is what I was afraid of ! ” cried Mercy. 
“ You are pantheists ! ” 


NATURE. 


299 


“ Bless my soul, Mercy ! ” exclaimed Christina ; 
“ what do you mean ? ” 

“Yes,” answered Ian. “ If to believe that not a lily 
can grow, not a sparrow fall to the ground without our 
Father, be pantheism, Alister and I are pantheists. If 
by pantheism you mean anything that would not fit 
with that, we are not pantheists.” 

“ Why should we trouble about religion more than is 
required of us ! ” interposed Christina. 

“ Why indeed ? ” returned Ian. “ But then how 
much is required ? ” 

“You require far more than my father, and he is 
good enough for me ! ” 

“ The Master says we are to love God with all our 
hearts and souls and strength and mind.” 

“ That was in the old law, Ian,” said Alister. 

“You are right. Jesus only justified it — and did 
it.” 

“ How then can you worship in the temple of Na- 
ture?” said Mercy. 

“ Just as he did. It is Nature’s temple, mind, for the 
worship of God, not of herself ! ” 

“ IIow then am I to get into it ? That is what I 
want to know.” 

“ The innermost places of the temple are open only 
to such as already worship in a greater temple ; but it 
has courts into which any honest soul may enter.” 

“You wouldn’t set me to study Wordsworth ?” 

“ By no means.” 

“ I am glad of that. There must be something in 
him more than I see, or you couldn’t care so much for 
him ! ” 

“ You must learn some of her lessons first before you 
can understand them.” 


300 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Could you call it learning a lesson if you did not 
understand it ? ” 

“Yes — to a certain extent. Did you learn at school 
to work the rule of three ? ” 

“ Yes ; and I was rather fond of it.” 

“ Did you understand it ?” 

“ I could work sums in it.” 

“ Did you see how it was that setting the terms down 
so, and working out the rule, must give you a true 
answer? Did you perceive that it was safe to buy or 
sell, to build a house, or lay out a garden, by the rule 
of three ? ” 

“ I did not. I do not yet.” 

“ Then one may so far learn a lesson without under- 
standing it ! All do, more or less, in Dame Nature’s 
school. Not a few lessons must be so learned in order 
to be better learned. Without being so learned first it 
is not possible to understand them ; the scholar has 
not facts enough about the things to understand them. 
Keats’s youthful delight in Nature was more intense 
even than Wordsworth’s, but he was only beginning 
to understand her when he died. Shelley was much 
nearer understanding her than Keats, but he was 
drowned before he did understand her. Wordsworth 
was far before either of them. At the same time, pre- 
sumptuous as it may appear, I believe there are vast 
regions to be traversed, beyond any point to which 
Wordsworth leads us.” 

“ But how am I to begin ? Do tell me. Nothing 
you say helps me in the least.” 

“ I have all the time been leading you towards the 
door at which you want to go in. It is not likely, how- 
ever, that it will open to you at once. I doubt if it 
will open to you at all except through sorrow.” 


NATURE. 


301 


“You are a most encouraging master!” said Chris- 
tina, with a light laugh. 

“It was Wordsworth’s bitter disappointment in the 
outcome of the French Revolution,” continued Ian, 
“ that opened the door to him. Yet he had gone 
through the outer courts of the temple with more un- 
derstanding than any who immediately preceded him. 
Will you let me ask you a question?” 

“You frighten me ! ” said Mercy. 

“ I am sorry for that. W e will talk of something 
else.” 

“ I am not afraid of what you may ask me ; I am 
frightened at what you tell me. I fear to go on if I 
must meet Sorrow on the way ! ” 

“ You make one think of some terrible secret society ! ” 
said Christina. 

“ Tell me then, Miss Mercy, is there anything you 
love very much ? I don’t say any person , but any 
thing” 

“ I love some animals.” 

“An animal is not a thing. It is possible to love 
animals and not the nature of which we are speaking. 
You might love a dog dearly, and never care to see the 
sun rise ! Tell me, did any flower ever make you cry?” 

“No,” answered Mercy with a puzzled laugh ; “how 
could it ? ” 

“ Did any flower ever make you a moment later in 
going to bed, or a moment earlier in getting out of it ? ” 

“ No, certainly ! ” 

“ In that direction, then, I am foiled ! ” 

“ You would not really have me cry over a flower, 
Mr. Ian? Did ever a flower make you cry yourself? 
Of course not ! it is only silly women that cry for 
nothing ! ” 


302 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


“ I would rather not bring myself in at present,” 
answered Ian smiling. “ Do you know how Chaucer 
felt about flowers ? ” 

“ I never read a word of Chaucer.” 

“ Shall I give you an instance ? ” 
w Please.” 

“ Chaucer was a man of the world, a courtier, more 
or less a man of affairs, employed by Edward III. in 
foreign business of state : you cannot mistake him for 
an effeminate or sentimental man ! He does not any- 
where, so far as I remember, say that ever he cried 
over a flower, but he shows a delight in some flowers 
so delicate and deep that it must have a source pro- 
founder than that of most people’s tears. When we 
go back I will read you what he says about the daisy ; 
but one more general passage I think I could repeat. 
There are animals in it too ! ” 

“ Do let us hear it,” said Mercy. 

He spoke the following stanzas — not quite correctly, 
but supplying for the moment’s need where he could 
not recall : 


A gardein saw I, full of blosomed bowis, 
Upon a river, in a grene mede, 

There as sweetnesse evermore inough is, 
With fioures white, blewe, yelowe, and rede, 
And cold welle streams, nothing dede. 

That swommen full of smale fishes light, 
With finnes rede, and scales silver bright. 


On every bough the birdes heard I sing, 

With voice of angell, in hir armonie, 

That busied hem, hir birdes forth to bring, 

The little pretty conies to hir play gan hie, 
And further all about I gan espie, 

The dredeful roe, the buck, the hart, and hind, 
Squirrels, and beastes small, of gentle kind. 


NATURE. 


303 


Of instruments of stringes in accorde, 

Heard I so play, a ravishing swetnesse, 

That God, that maker is of all and Lorde, 

Ne heard never better, as I gesse, 

Therwith a wind, unneth it might be lesse, 

Made in the leaves grene a noise SQft, 

Accordant to the foules song on loft. 

The aire of the place so attempre was, 

That never was ther grevance of hot ne cold, 

There was eke every holsome spice and gras, 

Ne no man may there waxe sicke ne old, 

Yet was there more joy o thousand fold, 

Than I can tell or ever could or might, 

There is ever clere day, and never night. 

He modernized it also a little in repeating it, so that 
his hearers missed nothing through failing to understand 
the words : how much they gained, it were hard to 
say. 

“ It reminds one,” commented Ian, “ of Dante’s par- 
adise on the top of the hill of purgatory.” 

“ I don’t know anything about Dante either,” said 
Mercy regretfully. 

“ There is plenty of time ! ” said Ian. 

“ But there is so much to learn ! ” returned Mercy in 
a hopeless tone. 

“ That is the joy of existence ! ” Ian replied. “We 
are not bound to know ; we are only bound to learn. — 
But to return to my task : a man may really love a 
flower. In another poem Chaucer tells us that such is 
his delight in his books that no other pleasure can take 
him from them — 

Save certainly, when that the month of May 
Is comen, and that I heare the foules sing, 

And that the fioures ginnen for to spring, 

Farwell my booke, and my devotion. 

Poor people love flowers ; rich people admire them.” 


304 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ But,” said Mercy, “ how can one love a thing that 
has no life ? ” 

Ian could have told her that whatever grows must 
live ; lie could further have told her his belief that life 
cannot be without its measure of consciousness ; but it 
would have led to more difficulty, and away from the 
end he had in view. lie felt also that no imaginable 
degree of consciousness in it was commensurate with 
the love he had himself for almost any flower. His 
answer to Mercy’s question was this : — 

“ A flower comes from the same heart as man him- 
self, and is sent to be his companion and minister. 
There is something divinely magical, because pro- 
foundly human in them. In some at least the human 
is plain ; we see a face of childlike peace and confidence 
that appeals to our best. Our feeling for many of them 
doubtless owes something to childish associations; but 
how did they get their hold of our childhood ? Why 
did they enter our souls at all? They are joyous, in- 
articulate children, come with vague messages from the 
father of all. If I confess that what they say to me 
sometimes makes me weep, how can I call my feeling 
for them anything but love? The eternal thing may 
have a thousand forms of which we know nothing 
yet!” 

Mercy felt Ian must mean something she ought to 
like, if only she knew what it was ; but he had not 
yet told her anything to help her! He had, how- 
ever, neither reached his end nor lost his way ; he was 
leading her on — gently and naturally. 

“ I did not mean,” he resumed, “ that you must of 
necessity begin with the flowers. I was only enquiring 
whether at that point you were nearer to Nature. Tell 
me — were you ever alone ?” 


NATURE. 


305 


“ Alone ! ” repeated Mercy, thinking. w — Surely 
everybody has been many times alone ! ” 

“ Could you tell when last you were alone ? ” 

She thought, but could not tell. 

“ What I want to ask you,” said Ian, “ is — did you 
ever feel alone ? Did you ever for a moment inhabit 
loneliness ? Did it ever press itself upon you that there 
was nobody near — that if you called nobody would 
hear? You are not alone, while you know that you can 
have a fellow creature with you the instant you choose.” 
“ I hardly think I have ever been alone in that way.” 
“ Then what I would have you do,” continued Ian, 
“is — to make yourself alone in one of Nature’s with- 
drawing-rooms, and seat yourself in one of Grannie’s 
own chairs. I am coming to the point at last! — Upon 
a day when the weather is fine, go out by yourself. 
Tell no one where you are going, or that you are going 
anywhere. Climb a hill. If you cannot get to the top 
of it, go high on the side of it. No book, mind ! noth- 
ing to fill your thinking-place from another’s ! People 
are always saying 4 1 think,’ when they are not thinking 
at all, when they are at best only passing the thoughts 
of others whom they do not even know. 

“ When you have got quite alone, when you do not 
even know the nearest point to anybody, sit down and 
be lonely. Look out on the loneliness, the wide world 
round you, and the great vault over you, with the 
lonely sun in the middle of it ; fold your hands in your 
lap, and be still. Do not try to think anything. Do 
not try to call up any feeling or sentiment or sensation ; 
just be still. By and by, it may be, you will begin to 
know something of Nature. I do not know you well 
enough to be sure about it ; but if you tell me after- 
wards how you fared, I shall then know you a little 


306 


what’s mine’s mine. 


better, and perhaps be able to tell you whether Nature 
will soon speak to you, or not until as Henry Vaughan 
says, some veil be broken in you.” 

They were approaching the cottage, and little more 
was said. They found Mrs. Palmer prepared to go, 
and Mercy was not sorry : she had had enough for a 
while. She was troubled at the thought that perhaps 
she was helplessly shut out from the life inhabited by 
the brothers. When she lay down, her own life seemed 
dull and poor. These men, with all their kindness, 
respect, attention, and even attendance ujion them, did 
not show them the homage which the men of their own 
circle paid them ! 

“ They will never miss us ! ” she said to herself. 
“ They will go on with their pantheism, or whatever it 
is, all the same ! ” 

But they should not say she was one of those who 
talk but will not do ! That scorn she could not bear ! 

All the time, however, the thing seemed to savor 
more of spell or cast of magic than philosoj)hy : the 
means enjoined were suggestive of a silent incantation ! 


CHAPTER XXX. 


GRANNY ANGRY. 

I T must not be supposed that all the visiting was on 
the part of those of the New House. The visits 
thence were returned by both matron and men. But 
somehow there was never the same freedom in the house 
as in the cottage. The difference did not lie in the 
presence of the younger girls : they were well behaved, 
friendly, and nowise disagreeable children. Doubtless 
there was something in the absence of books : it was of 
no use to jump up when a passage occurred ; help was 
not at hand. But it was more the air of the place, the 
presence of so many common-place things, that clogged 
the wheels of thought. Neither, with all her knowl- 
edge of the world and all her sweetness, did Mrs. 
Palmer understand the essentials of hospitality half so 
well as the widow of the late minister-chief. All of 
them liked, and confessed that they liked, the cottage 
best. Even Christina felt something lacking in their 
reception, and regretted that the house was not grand 
enough to show what they were accustomed to. 

Mrs. Palmer seldom understood the talk, and though 
she sat looking persistently pleased, was always haunted 
with a dim feeling that her husband would not be best 
pleased at so much intercourse between his rich daugh- 
ters and those penniless country fellows. But what 
could she do ! the place where he had abandoned them 
was so dull, so solitary ! The girls must not mope ! 
307 


308 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Christina would wither up without amusement, and then 
good-by to her beauty and all that depended upon it ! 
In the suavity of her motherhood, she more than liked the 
young men : happy mother she would think herself, 
were her daughters to marry such men as these. The 
relations between them and their mother delighted her: 
they were one ! their hearts were together ! they under- 
stood each other ! She could never have such bliss 
with her sons! Never since she gave them birth had 
she had one such look from either of hers as she saw 
pass every now and then from these to their mother ! 
It would be like being born again to feel herself 
loved in that way! For any danger to the girls, she 
thought with a sigh how soon in London they would 
forget the young highlanders. W as there no possibility 
of securing one of them ? What chance was there of 
Mercy’s marrying well ! She was so decidedly plain ! 
Was the idea of marrying her into an old and once 
powerful family like that of the Macruadh, to her hus- 
band inconceivable ? Could he not restore its property 
as the dowry of his second daughter ! It would be to 
him but a trifle ! — and he could stipulate that the chief 
should acknowledge the baronetcy and use his title ! 
Mercy would then be a woman of consequence, and 
Peregrine would have the Bible-honor of being the re- 
pairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in ! — 
Such were some of the thoughts that would come and 
go in the brain of the mother as she sat ; nor were they 
without a share in her readiness to allow her daughters 
to go out with the young men : she had an unquestion- 
ing conviction of their safety with them. 

The days went by, and what to Christina had seemed 
imprisonment, began to look like some sort of liberty. 
She had scarce come nearer to sympathy with those 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


309 


whose society consoled her, but their talk had ceased 
to sound repulsive. She was hardly a growing plant 
— was but like a well-modelled wax-flower. More was 
needed to wa¥e her than friends awake. It is wonder- 
ful how long the sleeping may go with the waking, and 
not discover any difference between them. But Gran- 
ny Nature was about to interfere. 

The spring drew gently on. It would be long ere 
summer was summer enough to show. There seemed 
more of the destructive in the spring itself than of 
the genial — cold winds, great showers, days of steady 
rain, sudden assaults of hail and sleet. Still it was 
spring and at length, one fine day with a bright sun, 
snow on the hills, and clouds in the east, but no sign 
of any sudden change, the girls went out for a walk, and 
took the younger girls with them. 

A little way up the valley, out of sight of the cottage, 
a small burn came down its own dell to join that which 
flowed through the chief’s farm. Its channel was wide, 
but except in time of rain had little water in it. About 
half a mile up its course it divided, or rather the chan- 
nel did, for in one of its branches there was seldom any 
water. At the fork was a low rocky mound with an 
ancient ruin of no great size — three or four fragments 
of thick walls, within whose plan grew a slender birch- 
tree. Thither went the little party, wandering up the 
stream : the valley was sheltered ; no wind but the 
south could reach it ; and the sun, though it could not 
make it very warm, as it looked only aslant on its slopes, 
yet lighted both sides of it. Great white clouds passed 
slowly across the sky, with now and then a nearer black 
one threatening rain, but a wind overhead was carrying 
them quickly over. 

Ian had seen the ladies pass, but made no effort to 


310 


what’s mine’s mine. 


overtake them, although he was bound in the same 
direction : at the moment he preferred the society of 
his book. Suddenly his attention was roused by a 
peculiar whistle, which he knew for thaPof Hector of 
the Stags : it was one of the few sounds he could make. 
Three times it was hurriedly repeated, and ere the third 
was over, Tan had discovered Hector high on a hill on 
the opposite side of the burn, waving his arms, and mak- 
ing eager signs to him. He stopped and set himself to 
understand. Hector was pointing with energy, but it 
was impossible to determine the exact direction : all 
that Ian could gather was, that his presence was wanted 
somewhere farther on. He resumed his walk therefore 
at a rapid pace, whereupon Hector pointed higher. 
There on the eastern horizon, towards the north, almost 
down upon the hills, Ian saw a congeries of clouds in 
strangest commotion, such as he had never before seen in 
any home latitude — a mass of darkly variegated vapors 
manifesting a peculiar and appalling unrest. It seemed 
tormented by a gyrating storm, twisting and contorting 
it with unceasing change. Now the gray came writh- 
ing out, now the black came bulging through, now a 
dirty brown smeared the ashy white, and now the blue 
shone calmly out from eternal distance. At the season 
he could hardly think it a thunder-storm, and stood ab- 
sorbed in the unusual phenomenon. But again, louder 
and more hurried, came the whistling, and again he 
saw Hector gesticulating, more wildly than before. 
Then he knew that some one must be in want of help 
or succor, and set off running as hard as he could : lie 
saw Hector keeping him in sight, and watching to give 
him further direction : perhaps the ladies had got into 
some difficulty ! 

When he arrived at the opening of the valley just 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


311 


mentioned, Hector’s gesticulations made it quite plain 
it was up there he must go ; and as soon as he entered 
it, he saw that the cloudy turmoil was among the hills 
at its head. With that he began to suspect the danger 
the hunter feared, and almost the same instant heard 
the merry voices of the children. Running yet faster, 
he came in sight of them on the other side of the 
stream, — not a moment too soon. The valley was full 
of a dull roaring sound. He called to them as he ran, 
and the children saw him and came running down the 
bank, followed by Mercy. She was not looking much 
concerned, for she thought it only the grumbling of 
distant thunder. But Ian saw, far up the valley, what 
looked like a low brown wall across it, and knew what 
it was. 

“ Mercy ! ” he cried, “ run up the side of the hill di- 
rectly ; you will be drowned — swept away if you 
don’t.” 

She looked incredulous, and glanced up the hill-side, 
but came on as if to cross the burn and join him. 

“ Do as I tell you,” he cried, in a tone which few 
would have ventured to disregard, and turning darted 
across the channel towards them. 

Mercy did not wait his coming, but took the children, 
each by a hand, and went a little way up the hill that 
immediately bordered the stream. 

“ Farther ! farther ! ” cried Ian as he ran. “ Where 
is Christina? ” 

“ At the ruin, w she answered. 

“ Good heavens ! ” exclaimed Ian, and darted off, cry- 
ing, “ Up the hill with you ! Up the hill ! ” 

Christina was standing by the birch-tree in the ruin, 
looking down the burn. She had heard Ian calling, 
and saw him running, but suspected no danger. 


312 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Come ; come directly ; for God’s sake, come ! ” he 
cried. “ Look up the burn ! ” he added, seeing her hes- 
itate bewildered. 

She turned, looked, and came running to him, down 
the channel, white with terror. It was almost too late. 
The charging water, whose front rank was turf, and 
bushes, and stones, was upon her. The solid matter 
had retarded its rush, but it was now on the point of 
dividing against the rocky mound, to sweep along both 
sides, and turn it into an island. Ian bounded to her in 
the middle of the channel, caught her by the arm, and 
hurried her back to the mound as fast as they could 
run : it was the highest ground immediately accessible. 
As they reached it, the water broke with a roar against 
its rocky base, rose, swelled — and in a moment the 
island was covered with a brown, seething, swirling 
flood. 

“ Where’s Mercy and the children ? ” gasped Chris- 
tina, as the water caught her. 

“ Safe, safe ! ” answered Ian. “We must get to the 
ruin ! ” 

The water was halfway up his leg, and rising fast. 
Their danger was but beginning. Would the old walls, 
in greater part built without mortar, stand the rush ? 
If a tree should strike them, they hardly would ! If 
the flood came from a water-spout, it would soon be 
over — only how high it might first rise, who could 
tell ? Such were his thoughts as they struggled to the 
ruin, and stood up at the end of a wall parallel with 
the current. 

The water was up to Christina’s waist, and very cold. 
Here out of the rush, however, she recovered her breath 
in a measure, and showed not a little courage. Ian 
stood between her and the wall, and held her fast. The 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


313 


torrent came round the end of the wal) from both sides, 
but the encounter and eddy of the two currents rather 
pushed them up against it. Without it they could not 
have stood. 

The chief danger to Christina, however, was from 
the cold. With the water so high on her body, and 
flowing so fast, she could not long resist it. Ian, there- 
fore, took her round the knees, and lifted her almost 
out of the water. 

“ Put your arms up,” he said, “ and lay hold of the 
wall. Don’t mind blinding me ; my eyes are of little 
use at present. There — put your feet in my hands. 
Don’t be frightened ; I can hold you.” 

“ I can’t help being frightened ? ” she panted. 

“We are in God’s arms,” returned Ian. “He is 
holding us.” 

“Are you sure we shall not be drowned?” she 
asked. 

“ No ; but I am sure the water cannot take us out of 
God’s arms.” 

This was not much comfort to Christina. She did 
not know anything about God — did not believe in 
him any more than most people. She knew arms only 
as the arms of Ian — and they comforted her, for she 
felt them ! 

IIow many of us actually believe in any support we 
do not immediately feel ? in any arms we do not see ? 
But Ian’s help was God’s help ; and though to believe 
in Ian was not to believe in God, it was a step on the 
road towards believing in God. He that believeth not 
in the good man whom he hath seen, how shall he be- 
lieve in the God whom he hath not seen ? 

She began to feel a little better ; the ghastly chok- 
ing at her heart was almost gone. 


314 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I shall break your arms ! ” she said. 

“You are not very heavy,” he answered; “and 
though I am not so strong as Alister, I am stronger 
than most men. With the help of the wall I can hold 
you a long time. 

How was it that, now first in danger, self came less 
to the front with her than usual ? It was that now first 
she was face to face with reality. Until this moment 
her life had been an affair of unrealities. Her selfish- 
ness had thinned, as it were vaporized, every reality 
that approached her. Solidity is not enough to teach 
some natures reality ; they must hurt themselves against 
the solid ere they realize its solidity. Small reality, 
small positivity of existence has water to a dreaming 
soul, half consciously gazing through half shut eyes at 
the soft river floating away in the moonlight : Christina 
was shivering in its grasp on her person, its omnipre- 
sence to her skin ; its cold made her gasp and choke ; 
the push and tug of it threatened to sweep her away 
like a whelmed log ! It is when we are most aware of 
the factitude of things, that we are most aware of our 
need of God, and most able to trust him ; when most 
aware of their presence, the soul finds it easiest to with- 
draw from them, and seek its safety with the maker of 
it and them. The recognition of inexorable reality in 
any shape, or kind, or way, tends to rouse the soul to 
the yet more real, to its relations with higher and deeper 
existence. It is not the hysterical alone for whom the 
great dash of cold water is good. All who dream life 
instead of living it, require some similar shock. Of the 
kind is every disappointment, every reverse, every 
tragedy of life. The true in even the lowest kind, 
is of the truth, and to be compelled to feel even that, 
is to be driven a trifle nearer to the truth of being, of 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


315 


creation, of God. Hence this sharp contact with Na- 
ture tended to make Christina less selfish ; it made her 
forget herself so far as to care for her helper as well as 
herself. 

It must be remembered, however, that her selfishness 
was not the cultivated and ingrained selfishness of a 
long life, but that of an uneducated, that is undevel- 
oped nature. Her being had not degenerated by sin- 
ning against light known as light ; it had not been con- 
sciously enlightened at all ; it had scarcely as yet begun 
to grow. It was not lying dead, only unawaked. I 
would not be understood to imply that she was nowise 
to blame — but that she was by no means so much to 
blame as one who has but suspected the presence of a 
truth, and from selfishness or self-admiration has turned 
from it. She was to blame wherever she had not done 
as her conscience feebly told her ; and she had not 
made progress just because she had neglected the little 
things concerning which she had promptings. There 
are many who do not enter the kingdom of heaven just 
because they will not believe the tiny key that is 
handed them, fit to open its hospitable gate. 

“ Oh, Mr. Ian, if you should be drowned for my 
sake ! ” she faltered with white lips. “ You should not 
have come to me ! ” 

“ I would not wish a better death,” said Ian. 

« How can you talk so coolly about it ! ” she cried. 

“ Well,” he returned, “ what better way of going out 
of the world is there than by the door of help? No 
man cares much about what the idiots people of the 
world call life ! What is it whether we live in this 
room or another ? The same who sent us here, sends 
for us out of here ! ” 

“ Most men care very much ! You are wrong there ! ” 


316 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I don’t call those who do, men ! They are only 
children ! I know many men who would no more cleave 
to this life than a butterfly would fold his wings and 
creep into his deserted chrysalis-case. I do care to live 
— tremendously, but I don’t mind where. He who 
made this room so well worth living in, surely may be 
trusted with the next ! ” 

“ I can’t quite follow you,” stammered Christina. 
“ I am sorry. Perhaps it is the cold. I can’t feel my 
hands, I am so cold.” 

“ Leave the wall, and put your arms round my neck. 
The change will rest me, and the water is already 
falling ! It will go as rapidly as it came ! ” 

“ How do you know that ? ” 

“ It has sunk nearly a foot in the last fifteen minutes : 
I have been carefully watching it, you may be sure ! 
It must have been a waterspout, and however much 
that may bring, it pours it out all at once.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Christina, with a tremulous joyfulness ; 
“ I thought it would go on ever so long ! ” 

“ We shall get out of it alive ! — God’s will be done ! ” 

“ Why do you say that ? Don’t you really mean we 
are going to be saved ? ” 

“ Would you want to live, if he wanted you to 
die?” 

“ Oh, but you forget, Mr. Ian, I am not ready to die, 
like you ! ” sobbed Christina. 

“ Do you think anything could make it better for 
you to stop here, after God thought it better for you to 
go?” 

“ I dare not think about it.” 

“ Be sure God will not take you away, if it be better 
for you to live here a little longer. But you will have 
to go sometime ; and if you contrived to live after God 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


317 


wanted you to go, you would find yourself. much less 
ready when the time came that you must. But, my 
dear Miss Palmer, no one can be living a true life, to 
whom dying is a terror.” 

Christina was silent. He spoke the truth ! She was 
not worth anything ! How grand it was to look death 
in the face with a smile ! 

If she had been no more than the creature she had 
hitherto shown herself, not all the floods of the deluge 
could have made her think or feel thus : her real self, 
her divine nature had begun to wake. True, that na- 
ture was as yet no more like the divine, than the drowsy, 
arm-stretching, yawning child is like the merry elf about 
to spring from his couch, full of life, of play, of love. 
She had no faith in God yet, but it was much that she 
felt she was not worth anything. 

You are right : it was odd to hold such a conversa- 
tion at such a time ! But Ian was an odd man. He 
actually believed that God was nearer to him than his 
own consciousness, yet desired communion with him! 
and that Jesus Christ knew what he said when he told 
his disciples that the Father cared for his sparrows. 

Only one human being witnessed their danger, and 
he could give no help. Hector of the Stags had crossed 
the main valley above where the torrent entered it, and 
coming over the hill, saw with consternation the flood- 
encompassed pair. If there had been help in man, he 
could have brought none ; the raging torrent blocked 
the way both to the village and to the chiefs house. 
He could only stand and gaze with his heart in his eyes. 

Beyond the stream lay Mercy on the hill-side, with 
her face in the heather. Frozen with dread, she dared 
not look up. Had she moved but ten yards, she would 
have seen her sister in Ian’s arms. 


318 


what’s mine’s mine. 


The children sat by her, white as death, with great 
lumps in their throats, and the silent tears rolling down 
their cheeks. It was the first time death had come 
near them. 

A sound of sweeping steps came through the heather. 
They looked up : there was the chief striding towards 
them. 

The flood had come upon him at work in his fields, 
whelming his growing crops. He had but time to un- 
yoke his bulls, and run for his life. The bulls, not 
quite equal to the occasion, were caught and swept 
away. They were found a week after on the hills, 
nothing the worse, and nearly as wild as w T hen first the 
chief took them in hand. The cottage was in no dan- 
ger ; and Nancy got a horse and the last of the cows 
from the farm-yard on to the crest of the ridge, against 
which the burn rushed roaring, just as the water began 
to invade the cow-house and stable. The moment he 
reached the ridge, the chief set out to look for his 
brother, whom he knew to be somewhere up the valley ; 
and having climbed to get an outlook, saw Mercy and 
the girls, from whose postures he dreaded that some- 
thing had befallen them. 

The girls uttered a cry of welcome, and the chief 
answered, but Mercy did not lift her head. 

“Mercy,” said Alister softly, and kneeling laid his 
hand on her. 

She turned to him such a face of blank misery as 
filled him with consternation. 

“ What has happened ? ” he asked. 

She tried to speak, but could not. 

“ Where is Christina ? ” he went on. 

She succeeded in bringing out the one word “ ruin.” 

“ Is anybody with her ? ” 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


319 


“Ian” 

“ Oh ! ” he returned cheerily, as if then all would be 
right. But a pang shot through his heart, and it was 
as much for himself as for Mercy that he went on : 
“But God is with them, Mercy. If he were not, it 
would be bad indeed ! Where he is, all is well ! ” 

She sat up, and putting out her hand, laid it in his 
great palm. 

“ I wish I could believe that ! ” she said ; “ but you 
know people are drowned sometimes ! ” 

“Yes, surely ! but if God be with them what does 
it matter ! It is not worse than when a mother puts her 
baby into a big bath.” 

“ It is cruel to talk like that to me when my sister is 
drowning ! ” 

She gave a stifled shriek, and threw herself again on 
her face. 

“ Mercy,” said the chief — and his voice trembled a 
little, “ you do not love your sister more than I love my 
brother, and if he be drowned I shall weep ; but I shall 
not be miserable as if a mocking devil were at the root 
of it and not one who loves them better than we ever 
shall. But come ; I think we shall find them somehow 
alive yet ! Ian knows what to do in an emergency ; and 
though you might not think it, he is a very strong man. 

She rose immediately, and taking like a child the 
hand he offered her, went up the hill with him. 

The girls ran before them, and presently gave a 
scream of joy. 

“ I see Chrissy ! I see Chrissy ! ” cried one. 

“ Yes ! there she is ! I see her too ! ” cried the other. 

Alister hurried up with Mercy. There was Chris- 
tina ! She seemed standing on the water. Mercy burst 
into tears. 


320 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ But where’s Ian ? ” she said, when she had recov- 
ered herself a little ; “ I don’t see him ! ” 

“ lie is there though, all right ! ” answered Alister. 
“Don’t you see his hands holding her out of the 
water ? ” 

And with that he gave a great shout : — 

“ Ian ! Ian ! hold on, old boy ! I’m coming ! ” 

Ian heard him, and was filled with terror, but had 
neither breath nor strength to answer. Along the hill- 
side went Alister bounding like a deer, then turning 
sharp, shot headlong down, dashed into the torrent — 
and was swept away like a cork. Mercy gave a scream, 
and ran down the hill. 

He was not carried very far, however. In a moment 
or two he had recovered himself, and crept out gasping 
and laughing, just below Mercy. Ian did not move. 
He was so benumbed that to change his position an 
inch would, he well knew, be to fall. 

And now Hector began to behave oddly. He threw 
a stone, which went in front of Ian and Christina. Then 
he threw another, which went behind them. Then he 
threw a third, and Christina felt her hat caught by a 
bit of string. She drew it towards her as fast as numb- 
ness would permit, and found at the end a small bottle. 
She managed to get it uncorked, and put it to Ian’s 
lips. He swallowed a mouthful, and made her take 
some. The chief stood on the other side, watching the 
proceeding. 

“ What would mother say, Alister ! ” cried Ian. 

In the joy of hearing his voice, Alister rushed again 
into the torrent; and after a fierce struggle, readied 
the mound, where he scrambled up, and putting his 
arms round Ian’s legs with a shout, lifted the two at 
once like a couple of babies. 


GRANNY ANGRY. 


321 


“Come! come, Alister! don’t be silly!” said Ian. 
“ Set me down ! ” 

“ Give me the girl then.” 

“ Take her ! ” 

Christina turned on him a sorrowful gaze as Alister 
took her. 

“ I have killed you ! ” she said. 

“ You have done me the greatest favor,” he replied. 

“What?” she asked. 

“ Accepted help.” 

She burst out crying. She had not shed a tear be- 
fore. 

“ Get on the top of the wall, Ian, out of the wet,” 
said Alister. 

“You can’t tell what the water may have done to 
the foundations, Alister! I would rather not break my 
leg ! It is so frozen it would never mend again ! ” 

As they talked, the torrent had fallen so much, that 
Hector of the Stags came wading from the other side. 
A few minutes more, and Alister carried Christina to 
Mercy. 

“Now,” he said, setting her down, “you must 
walk.” 

Ian could not cross without Hector’s help ; he seemed 
to have no legs. Nothing could be done for them but 
get them home ; so they all set out for the cottage. 

“How will your crops fare, Alister?” asked Ian. 

“Part will be spoiled,” replied the chief; “part not 
much the worse.” 

The torrent had rushed half-way up the ridge, then 
swept along the side of it, and round the end in huge 
bulk, to the level on the other side. The water lay 
soaking into the fields. The valley was desolated. 
What green things had not been uprooted or carried 


322 


what’s mine’s mine. 


away with the soil, were laid flat. Everywhere was 
mud, and scattered all over were lumps of turf, heather, 
brushwood, and small trees. But it was early in the 
year, and there was hope ! 

I will spare the description of the haste and hurry- 
ing to and fro in the little house — the blowing of fires, 
the steaming pails and blankets, the hot milk and tea ! 
Mrs. Macruadh rolled up her sleeves, and worked like a 
good house-maid. Nancy shot hither and thither on 
her bare feet like a fawn — you could not say she ran, 
and certainly she did not walk. Alister got Ian to bed, 
and rubbed him with rough towels — himself more wet 
than he, for he had been rolled over and over in the 
torrent. Christina fell asleep, and slept many hours. 
When she woke, she said she was quite well ; but it was 
weeks before she was like herself. I doubt if ever she 
was quite as strong again. For some days Ian con- 
fessed to an aching in his legs and arms. It was the 
cold of the water, he said ; but Alister insisted it was 
from holding Christina so long. 

“ W ater could not hurt a highlander ! ” said Alister. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


CHANGE. 

C HRISTINA walked home without difficulty, but 
the next day did not leave her bed, and it was a 
fortnight before she was able to be out of doors. When 
Ian and she met, he felt that her manner was not quite 
the same. She seemed a little timid. As she shook 
hands with him her eyes fell ; and when they looked 
up again as if ashamed of their involuntary retreat, her 
face was rosy ; but the slight embarrassment disappeared 
as soon as they began to talk. No affectation or for- 
mality, however, took its place ; in respect of Ian her 
falseness was gone. The danger she had been in, and 
her deliverance through the voluntary sharing of it, 
by Ian, had awaked the simpler, the real nature of the 
girl, hitherto buried to impressions and their responses. 
She had lived but as a mirror meant only to reflect the 
outer world : something of an operative existence was 
at length beginning to appear in her. She was grow- 
ing a woman. And the first stage in that growth is to 
become as a little child. 

The child, however, did not for some time show her 
face to any but Ian. In his presence Christina had no 
longer self-assertion or wile. Without seeking his no-* 
tice she would yet manifest an almost childish willing- 
ness to please him. It was no sudden change. She 
had, ever since their adventure, been haunted, both 
awake and asleep, by his presence, and it had helped 
323 


324 


what’s mine’s mine. 


her to some discoveries regarding herself. And the 
more she grew real, the nearer, that is, that she came 
to being a person , the more she came under the influence 
of his truth, his reality. It is only through live relation 
to others that any individuality crystallizes. 

“You saved my life, Ian!” she said one evening, for 
the tenth time. 

“ It pleased God you should live,” answered Ian. 

“Then you really think,” she returned, “that God 
interfered to save us ? ” 

“No, I do not; I don’t think he ever interferes.” 

“Mr. Sercombe says everything goes by law, and 
God never interferes ; my father says he does interfere 
sometimes.” 

“Would you say a woman interfered in the manage- 
ment of her own house? Can one be said to interfere 
where he is always at work ? Ho^ 7 can God interfere 
where everything would stop with **n ? He is the 
necessity of the universe, ever and aivv.—, doing the 
best that can be done, and especially for the individual, 
for whose sake alone the cosmos exists. If we had 
been drowned, we should have given God thanks for 
saving us.” 

“ I do not understand you ! ” 

“ Should we not have given thanks to find ourselves 
lifted out of the cold rushing waters, in which we felt 
our strength slowly sinking ? ” 

“But you said drowned! How could we have 
thanked God for deliverance if we were drowned ? ” 

“What! — not when we found ourselves above the 
water, safe and well, and more alive than ever? Would 
it not be a dreadful thing to lie tossed for centuries 
under the sea-waves to which the torrent had borne 
us ? Ah, how few believe in a life beyond, a larger life, 


CHANGE. 


325 


more awake, more earnest, more joyous than this!” 

“Oh, I do! but that is not what one means by life ; 
that is quite a different kind of thing ! ” 

“ How do you make out that it is so different ? If I 
am I, and you are you, how can it be very different 
there ? The root of things is individuality, unity of idea, 
and persistence depends on it. God is the one perfect 
individual ; and while this world is his and that world 
is his, there can be no inconsistency, no violent differ- 
ence, between there and here?” 

“ Then you must thank God for everything — thank 
him if you are drowned, or burnt, or anything ! ” 

“ Now you understand me ! That is precisely what 
I mean.” 

“ Then I can never be good, for I could never bring 
myself to that ! ” 

“You cannot bring yourself to it; no one could. 
But we must come to it. I believe we shall all be 
brought to it.” 

“ Never me ! I should not wish it.” 

“ Y ou do not wish it ; but you may be brought to 
wish it ; and without it the end of your being cannot 
be reached. No one, of course, could ever give thanks 
for what was not known or felt as good. But what is 
good must come to be felt good. Can you suppose that 
Jesus at any time could not thank his Father for send- 
ing him into the world ? ” 

“You speak as if we and he were of the same kind.” 

“ He and we are so entirely of the same kind, that 
there is no bliss for him or for you or for me but in 
beino 1 the lovincr obedient child of the one Father.” 

“ You frighten me ! If I cannot get to heaven any 
other way than that, I shall never get there.” 

« You will get there, and you will get there that way 


826 


what’s mine’s mine. 


and no other. If you could get there any other way, 
it would be to be miserable.” 

“ Something tells me you speak the truth ; but it is 
terrible ! I do not like it.” 

“ Naturally.” 

She was on the point of crying. They were alone 
in the drawing-room of the cottage, but his mother 
might enter any moment, and Ian said no more. 

It was not a drawing towards the things of peace, 
that was at work in Christina : it was an urging pain- 
ful sense of separation from Ian. She had been con- 
scious of some antipathy even towards him, so unlike 
were her feelings, thoughts, judgments, to his : this 
feeling had changed to its opposite. 

A meeting with Ian was now to Christina the great 
event of day or week ; but Ian, in love with the dead, 
never thought of danger to either. 

One morning she woke from a sound and dreamless 
sleep, and, getting out of bed drew aside the curtains, 
looked out, and then opened her window. It was a 
lovely spring-morning. The birds were singing loud 
in the fast greening shrubbery. A soft wind was blow- 
ing. It came to her where she stood, and said some- 
thing of which she understood only that it was both 
lovely and sad. The sun, but a little way up, was 
shining over hills and cone-shaped peaks, whose shad- 
ows, stretching eagerly westward, were yet ever short- 
ening eastward. His light was gentle, warm and humid, 
as if a little sorrowful, she thought, over his many dead 
children, that he must call forth so many more to the 
new life of the reviving year. Suddenly as she gazed, 
the little clump of trees against the hillside stood as 
she had never seen them stand before — as if the sap in 
them were no longer colorless but red with human life ; 


CHANGE. 


327 


nature was alive with a presence she had never seen 
before; it was instinct with a meaning, an intent, a 
soul ; the mountains stood against the sky as if reach- 
ing upward, knowing something, waiting for something ; 
over all was a glory. The change was far more won- 
drous than from winter to summer ; it was not as if a 
dead body, but a dead soul had come alive. What 
could it mean? Had the new aspect come forth to 
answer this glow in her heart, or was the glow in her 
heart the reflection of this new aspect of the world? 
She was ready to .cry aloud not with joy, not from her 
feeling of the beauty, but with a sensation almost, 
hitherto unknown, therefore* nameless. It was a new 
and marvellous interest in the world, a new sense of 
life in herself, of life in everything, a recognition of 
brother-existence, a life-contact with the universe, a 
conscious flash of the divine in her soul, a throb of the 
pure joy of being. She was nearer God than she had 
ever been before. But she did not know this — might 
never in this world know it ; she understood nothing 
of what was going on in her, only felt it go on ; it was 
not love of God that was moving in her. Yet she stood 
in her white dress like one risen from the grave, look- 
ing in sweet bliss on a new heaven and a new earth, 
made new by the new-opening of her eyes. To save 
man or woman, the next thing to the love of God is 
the love of man or woman ; only let no man or woman 
mistake the love of love for love ! 

She started, grew white, stood straight up, grew red 
as a sunset : — was it — could it be ? — “ Is this love ? ” 
she said to herself, and for minutes she hardly moved. 

It was love. Whether love was in her or not, she 
was in love — and it might get inside her. She hid 
her face in her hands, and wept. 


S28 


what’s mine’s mine. 


With what opportunities I have had of studying, I 
do not say understanding , the human heart, I should 
not have expected such feeling from Christina — and 
she wondered at it herself. Till a child is awake, how 
tell his mood? — until a woman is awaked, how tell 
her nature? Who knows himself? — and how then 
shall he know his neighbor ? 

For who can know anything except on the supposi- 
tion of its remaining the same? and the greatest 
change of all, next to being born again, is beginning to 
love. The very faculty of loving had been hitherto 
repressed in the soul of Christina — by poor education, 
by low family and social influences, by familiarity with 
the worship of riches, by vanity, and consequent hunger 
after the attentions of men ; but now at length she was 
in love. 

At breakfast, though she was silent, she looked so 
well that her mother complimented her on her loveli- 
ness. Had she been more of a mother, she might have 
seen cause for anxiety in this fresh bourgeoning of her 
beauty. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


W HILE the chief went on in his humble way, en- 
joying life and his lowly position ; in the so- 
ciety of his brother, seeming to walk the outer courts of 
heaven ; and, unsuspicious of the fact, growing more 
and more in love with the ill-educated, but simple, open, 
and wise Mercy, a trouble was gathering for him, of 
which he had no presentiment. W e have to be delivered 
from the evils of which we are unaware as well as from 
those we hate ; and the chief had to be set free from his 
unconscious worship of Mammon. He did not worship 
Mammon by yielding homage to riches ; he did not 
make a man’s money his pedestal ; had he been himself 
a millionaire, he would not have connived at being there- 
fore held in honor ; but, ever consciously aware of the 
deteriorating condition of the country, and pitifully re- 
garding the hundred and fifty souls who yet looked to 
him as their head, often turning it over in his mind 
how to shepherd them should things come to a crisis, 
his abiding, ever recurring comfort was the money from 
the last sale of the property, and now accumulating 
ever since, to be his in a very few years : he always 
thought, I say, first of this money and not first of God. 
He imagined it an exhaustible sum, a power with which 
for his clan he could work wonders. It is the common 
human mistake to think of money as a power and not 
as a mere tool. But he never thought of it otherwise 
329 


330 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


than as belonging to the clan ; never imagined the least 
liberty to use it save in the direct service of his people. 
And all the time, the very shadow of this money was 
disappearing from the face of the earth. 

It had scarcely been deposited where the old laird 
judged it as safe as in the Bank of England, when 
schemes and speculations were entered into by the in- 
trusted company which brought into jeopardy every 
thing it held, and things had been going from bad to 
worse ever since. Nothing of this was yet known, for 
the directors had from the first carefully muffled up the 
truth, avoiding the least economy lest it should be inter- 
preted as hinting at any need of prudence, living in false 
show with the very money they were thus lying away, 
warming and banqueting their innocent neighbors with 
fuel and wine stolen from their own cellars, and work- 
ing worse wrong and more misery under the. robe of 
imputed righteousness, that is, respectability, than could 
a little army of burglars. Unknown to a trusting mul- 
titude, the vacant eyes of loss were drawing near to 
stare them out of hope and comfort : and annihilation 
had long closed in upon the fund which the chief re- 
garded as the sheet-anchor of his clan : he trusted in 
Mammon, and Mammon had played him a rogue’s 
trick. The most degrading wrong to ourselves, and 
the worst eventual wrong to others, is to trust in any 
thing or person but the living God : it was an evil 
thing from which the chief had sore need to be deliv- 
ered. Even those who help us we must regard as the 
loving hands of the great heart of the universe, else we 
do God wrong, and will come to do them wrong also. 

And there was more yet of what we call mischief 
brewing in another quarter to like hurt. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer was not now so rich a man as 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


331 


when he bought his highland property ; he was also in- 
volved in affairs of doubtful result. It was natural, 
therefore, that he should begin to think of the said 
property not merely as an ornament of life, but as 
something to fall back upon. He feared nothing, how- 
ever, more unpleasant than a temporary embarrassment. 
Had not his family been in the front for three genera- 
tions ! Had he not then a vested right in success ! 
lie had a claim for the desire of his heart, on whatever 
power it was that he pictured to himself as throned in 
the heavens. It never came into his head that, seeing 
there were now daughters in the family, it might be 
worth the while of that Power to make a poor man of 
him for their sakes ; or that neither he, his predecessors, 
nor his sons, had ever come near enough to anything 
human to be fit for having their pleasures taken from 
them. But what I have to do with is the new aspect 
his Scotch acres now put on : he must see to making 
the best of them ! and that best would be a deer-for- 
est! He and his next neighbor might together effect 
something worth doing ! The shepherds in especial 
must be got rid of — with all other crofters or villagers 
likely to trespass ! But the shepherds had the most 
and best opportunities for helping themselves to a deer, 
and where there were sheep there must be shepherds : 
they would make a clearance of both ! The neighbor 
referred to, a certain Mr. Smith, who had made his 
money by sharp dealing in connection with a great 
Russian railway, and whom Mr. Peregrine Palmer 
knew before in London, had enlightened him on many 
things, and amongst others on the shepherd’s passion 
for deer-stalking. Being in the company of the deer, 
he said, the whole day, and the whole year through, 
they were thoroughly acquainted with their habits and 


332 


what’s mine’s mine. 


were altogether too much both for the deer and for 
their owners. A shepherd would take the barrel of his 
gun from the stock, and thrust it down his back, or put 
it in a hollow crook, and so convey it to the vicinity of 
some spot frequented by a particular animal to lie hid- 
den there for his opportunity. In the hills it was often 
impossible to tell with certainty whence came the 
sound of a shot ; and no rascal of them would give in- 
formation concerning another ! In short, there was no 
protecting the deer without uprooting and expelling the 
peasantry ! 

The village of the Clanruadh was on Mr. Smith’s 
land, and was dependent in part on the produce of 
small pieces of ground, the cultivators of which were 
mostly men with some employment besides. Some 
made shoes of the hides, others cloth and clothes of the 
wool of the country. Some were servants on neighbor- 
ing farms, but most were shepherds, for there was now 
very little tillage. Almost all the land formerly culti- 
vated, had been given up to grass and sheep, and not a 
little of it was steadily returning to that state of nature 
from which it had been reclaimed, producing of heather, 
ling, blueberries, knowperts , and cranberries. The ham- 
let was too far from the sea for much fishing, but some 
of its inhabitants would join relatives on the coast, and 
go fishing with them, when there was nothing else to 
be done. But many of those who looked to the sea for 
help had lately come through a hard time, in which 
they would have died but for the sea-weed and shell- 
fish the shore afforded them ; yet, such was their spirit 
of independence that a commission appointed to inquire 
into their necessity, found scarcely one willing to ac- 
knowledge any want : such was the class of men and 
women now doomed, at the will of two common- 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


333 


minded, greedy men, to expulsion from the houses and 
land it had held for many generations and loved with a 
love unintelligible to their mean-souled oppressors. 

Ian, having himself learned the lesson that, so long as 
a man is dependent on anything earthly, he is not a 
free man, was very desirous to have his brother free 
also. He could not be satisfied to leave the matter 
where, on their way home that night from the tomb , 
their talk had left it. Alister’s love of the material 
world, of the soil of his ancestral acres, was, Ian plainly 
saw, not yet one with the meaning and will of God : he 
was not yet content that the home of his fathers should 
fare as the father of fathers pleased. He was therefore 
on the outlook for the right opportunity of having an- 
other talk with him on the subject. 

That those who are trying to be good are more con- 
tinuously troubled than the indifferent, has for ages 
been a puzzle. “ I saw the wicked spreading like a 
green bay tree,” says king David ; and he was far from 
having fathomed the mystery when he got his mind at 
rest about it. Is it not simply that the righteous are 
worth troubling? that they are capable of receiving 
good from being troubled ? As a man advances, more 
and more is required of him. A wrong thing in the 
good man becomes more and more wrong as he draws 
nearer to freedom from it. His friends may say how 
seldom he offends ; but every time he offends, he is the 
more to blame. Some are allowed to go on because it 
would be of no use to stop them yet ; nothing would 
yet make them listen to wisdom. There must be many 
who, like Dives, need the bitter contrast between the 
good things of this life and the evil things of the next, 
to wake them up. In this life they are not only fools, 
and insist on being treated as fools, but would have 


334 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


God consent to treat them as if he too had no wisdom ! 
The laird was one in whom was no guile, but he was 
far from perfect : any man is far from perfect whose 
sense of well-being could be altered by any change of 
circumstances. A man unable to do without this thing 
or that, is not yet in sight of his perfection, therefore 
not out of sight of suffering. They who do not know 
suffering, may well doubt if they have yet started on the 
way to be. If clouds were gathering to burst in fierce hail 
on the head of the chief, it was that he might be set free 
from yet another of the cords that bound him. He was 
like a soaring eagle from whose foot hung, trailing on the 
earth, the line by which his tyrant could pull him back 
to his inglorious perch at his will. 

To worship truly is to treat according to indwelling 
worth. The highest worship of Nature is to worship 
towards it, as David and Daniel worshipped towards 
the holy place. But even the worship of Nature her- 
self might be an ennobling idolatry, so much is the 
divine present in her. There is an intense, almost sen- 
suous love of Nature, such as the chief confessed to his 
brother, which is not only one with love to the soul of 
Nature, but tends to lift the soul of man up to the lord 
of Nature. To love the soul of Nature, however, does 
not secure a man from loving the body of Nature in 
the low Mammon- way of possession. A man who loves 
the earth even as the meek love it, may also love it in 
a way hostile to such possession of it as is theirs. The 
love of possessing as property, must, unchecked, come 
in time to annihilate in a man the inheritance of the 
meek. 

A few acres of good valley-land, with a small upland 
pasturage, and a space of barren hill-country, had de- 
veloped in the chief a greater love of the land as pos- 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


335 


session than would have come of entrance upon an 
undiminished inheritance. He clave to the ground 
remaining to him, as to the last remnant of a vanishing 
good. 

One day the brothers were lying on the westward 
slope of the ridge, in front of the cottage. A few 
sheep, small, active, black-faced, were feeding around 
them : it was no use running away, for the chiefs colley 
was lying beside him ! The laird every now and then 
buried his face in the short sweet mountain-grass — like 
that of the downs in England, not like the rich sown 
grass on the cultivated bank of the burn. 

“ I believe I love the grass,” he said, “ as much, Ian, 
as your Chaucer loved the daisy ! ” 

“ Hardly so much, I should think ! ” returned Ian. 

“ Why do you think so ? ” 

“ I doubt if grass can be loved so much as a flower.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ Because the one is a mass, the other an individ- 
ual.” 

“ I understand.” 

“ I have a fear, Alister, that you are in danger of 
avarice,” said Ian after a pause. 

“ Avarice, Ian ! What can you mean ? ” 

“ You are as free, Alister, from the love of money, 
as any man I ever knew, but that is not enough. Did 
you ever think of the origin of the word avarice f ” 

“ No.” 

“ It comes — at least it seems to me to come — from 
the same root as the verb have , and holds relation with 
anything. It is the desire to call things ours — the de- 
sire of company which is not of our kind — company 
such as, if small enough, you would put in your pocket 
and carry about with you. We call the holding in the 


336 


what’s mine’s mine. 


hand, or the house, or the pocket, or the power, having ; 
but such things cannot really be had ; having is but an 
illusion in regard to things. It is only what we can be 
with that we can really possess — that is, what is of 
our kind, from God to the lowest animal partaking of 
humanity. A love can never be lost ; it is a j^ossession ; 
but who can take his diamond ring into the somewhere 
beyond ? — it is not a possession. God only can be 
ours perfectly ; nothing called property can be ours at 
all.” 

“ I know it — with my head at least,” said Alister ; 
“ but I am not sure how you apply it to me.” 

“ You love your country — don’t you, Alister ? ” 

“ I do.” 

“ What do you mean by loving your country ? ” 

“ It is hard to say all at once. The first thing that 
comes to me is, that I would rather live in it than in 
any other.” 

“Would you care to vaunt your country at the ex- 
pense of any other ? ” 

“ Not if it did not plainly excel — and even then it 
might be neither modest nor polite 1 ” 

“ Would you feel bound to love a man more because 
he was a fellow-countryman ? ” 

“ Other things being equal, I could not help it.” 

“ Other things not being equal — ?” 

“ I should love the best man best — Scotsman or 
negro.” 

“ That is as I thought of you. For my part, my love 
for my own people has taught me to love every man, 
be his color or country what it may. The man whose 
patriotism is not leading him in that direction has not 
yet begun to be a true patriot. Let him go to St. Paul 
and learn, or stay in his own cellar and be an idiot. — 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


337 


But now, from loving our country, let us go down the 
other way : — Do you love the highlands or the low- 
lands best ? You love the highlands, of course, you say. 
And what country do you like best ? Our own. What 
parish? Your father’s. What part of the parish? 
Why this, where at this moment we are lying. Now 
let me ask, have you, by your love for this piece of the 
world, which you will allow me to call ours , learned to 
love the whole world in like fashion ? ” 

“ I cannot say so. I do not think we can love the 
whole world in the same way as our own part of it — 
the part where we were born and bred ! It is a portion 
of our very being.” 

“ If your love to what we call our own land is a love 
that cannot spread, it seems to me of a questionable 
kind ? — of a kind involving the false notion of having f 
The love that is eternal alone is true, and that is the 
love of the essential, which is the universal. We love 
indeed individuals even to their peculiarities, but only 
because of what lies under and is the life of them — 
what they share with every other, the eternal God-born 
humanity which is the person. Without this humanity 
where were your friend ? Mind, I mean no abstraction, 
but the live individual humanity. Do you see what I 
am driving at ? I would extend my love of the world 
to all the worlds ; my love of humanity to all that in- 
habit them. I want, from being a Scotsman, to be a 
Briton, then a European, then a cosmopolitan, then a 
dweller of the universe, a lover of all the worlds I see, 
and shall one day know. In the face of such a hope, I 
find my love for this ground of my fathers — not indeed 
less than before, but very small. It has served its pur- 
pose in having begun in me love of the revelation of 
God. Wherever I see the beauty of the Lord, that 


338 


what’s mine’s mine. 


shall be to me his holy temple. Our Lord was sent 
first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel: — how 
would you bear to be told that he loved them more 
than Africans or Scotsmen ? ” 

“ I could not bear it.” 

“ Then, Alister, do you not see that the love of our 
mother earth is meant to be but a beginning ; and that 
such love as yours for the land belongs to that love of 
things which must perish ? You seem to me not to al- 
low it to blossom, but to keep it a hard bud ; and a bud 
that will not blossom is a coffin. A flower is a com- 
pleted idea, a thought of God, a creature whose body is 
most perishable, but whose soul, its idea, cannot die. 
With the idea of it in you, the withering of the flower 
you can bear. The God in it is yours always. Every 
spring you welcome the daisy anew ; every time the 
primrose departs, it grows more dear by its death. I 
say there must be a better way of loving the ground on 
which we were born, than that whence the loss of it 
would cause us torture.” 

Alister listened as to a prophecy of evil. 

“ Rather than that cottage and those fields should 
pass into the hands of others,” he said, almost fiercely, 
“ I would see them sunk in a roaring tide ! ” 

Ian rose, and walked slowly away. 

Alister lay clutching the ground with his hands. 
For a passing moment Ian felt as if he had lost him. 

“ Lord, save him from this demon-love,” he said, and 
sat down among the pines. 

In a few minutes, Alister came to him. 

“ You cannot mean, Ian,” he said — and his face 
was white through all its brown, “ that I am to think 
no more of the fields of my fathers than of any other 
ground on the face of the earth ! ” 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


339 


“ Think of them as the ground God gave to our 
fathers, which God may see fit to take from us again, 
and I shall be content — for the present,” answered Ian. 

“ Do not be vexed with me,” cried Alister. “ I want 
to think as well as do what is right ; but you can not 
know how I feel or you would spare me. I love the 
very stones and clods of the land ! The place is to me 
as Jerusalem to the Jews : — you know what the psalm 
says : — 

Thy saints take pleasure in her stones, 

Her very dust to them is dear. 

“ They loved their land as theirs ,” said Ian, “ and 
have lost it ! ” 

“ I know I must be cast out of it ! I know I must 
die and go from it ; but I shall come back and wander 
about the fields and the hills with you and father and 
mother ! ” 

“ And how about your horse ? ” asked Ian, willing to 
divert his thoughts for a time. 

“ Well ! Daoimean and dog Luath are so good that I 
don’t see why I should not have them ! ” 

“No more do I!” responded Ian. “We may be 
sure God will either let you have them, or show you 
reason to content you for not having them ! No love 
of any thing is to be put in the same thought-pocket 
with love for the poorest creature that has life. But 
I am sometimes not a little afraid lest your love for the 
soil get right into your soul. We are here but pilgrims 
and strangers. God did not make the world to be 
dwelt in, but to be journeyed through. We must not 
love it as he did not mean we should. If we do, he 
may have great trouble and we much hurt ere we are 
set free from it. Alister, would you willingly walk out 


340 


what’s mine’s mine. 


of the house to follow him up and down forever?” 

“ I don’t know about willingly replied Alister, 
“ but if I were sure it was he calling me, I am sure I 
would walk out and follow him.” 

“ What if your love of house and lands prevented 
you from being sure, when he called you, that it was 
he ? ” 

“ That would be terrible ! But he would not leave 
me so. He would not forsake me in my ignorance ! ” 

“ N o. Having to take you from everything, he would 
take everything from you ! ” 

Alister went into the house. 

He did not know how much of the worldly mingled 
with the true in him. lie loved his people, and was 
unselfishly intent on helping them to the utmost ; but 
the thought that he was their chief was no small satis- 
faction and the relation between them was a grand 
one, self had there the more soil wherein to spread its 
creeping choke-grass roots. In like manner, his love of 
nature nourished the parasite possession. He had but 
those bare hill-sides, and those few rich acres, yet when, 
from his eyry on the hill-top, he looked down among 
the valleys, his heart would murmur within him, “ From 
my feet the brook flows gurgling to water my fields ! 
the wild moors around me feed my sheep ! Yon glen 
is full of my people ! ” Even with the pure smell of the 
earth, mingled the sense of its possession. When, step- 
ping from his cave-house, he saw the sun rise on the 
outstretched grandeur of the mountain-world, and felt 
the earth a new creation as truly as when Adam first 
opened his eyes on its glory, his heart would give one 
little heave more at the thought that a portion of it 
was his own. But all is man’s only because it is God’s. 
The true possession of anything is to see and feel in it 


LOVE ALLODIAL. 


341 


what God made it for ; and the uplifting of the soul by 
that knowledge, is the joy of true having. The Lord 
had no land of his own. lie did not care to have it, 
any more than the twelve legions of angels he would 
not pray for : his pupils must not care for things he did 
not care for. He had no place to lay his head in — had 
not even a grave of his own. For want of a boat he 
had once to walk the rough Galilean sea. True, lie 
might have gone with the rest, but he had to stop be- 
hind to pray : he could not do without that. Once he 
sent a fish to fetch him money, but only to pay a tax. 
He had even to borrow the few loaves and little fishes 
from a boy, to feed his five thousand with. 

The half-hour which Alister spent in the silence of 
his chamber, served him well : a ray as of light polar- 
ized entered his soul in its gloom. He returned to Ian, 
who had been all the time walking up and down the 
ridge. 

“You are right, Ian!” he said. “I do love the 
world ! If I were deprived of what I hold, I should 
doubt God ! I fear, oh, I fear, Ian, he is going to take 
the land from me ! ” 

“ We must never fear the will of God, Alister ! We 
are not right until we can pray heartily, not say submis- 
sively, 4 Thy will be done ! ’ We have not one interest, 
and God another. When we wish what he does not 
wish, we arc not more against him than against our real 
selves. We are traitors to the human when we think 
anything but the will of God desirable, when we fear 
our very life.” 

It was getting toward summer, and the days were 
growing longer. 

“ Let us spend a night in the tomb ! ” said Ian ; and 
they fixed a day in the following week. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


MERCY CALLS ON GRANNY. 

LTHOUGH the subject did not again come up, 



-^-A- Mercy had not forgotten what Ian had said 
about listening for the word of Nature, and had resolved 
to get away the first time she could, and see whether 
Granny, as Ian had called her, would have anything 
to do with her. It were hard to say what she expected 
— something half magical rather than anything quite 
natural . The notions people have of spiritual influence 
are so unlike the facts, that, when it begins they never 
recognize it, but imagine something common at work. 
When the Lord came, those who were looking for him 
did not know him : — was he not a man like themselves ! 
did they not know his father and mother ! 

It was a fine spring morning when Mercy left the 
house to seek an interview with Nature somewhere 
among the hills. She took a path she knew well, and 
then struck into a sheep-track she had never tried. Up 
and up she climbed, nor spent a thought on the sudden 
changes to which at that season, and amongst those 
hills, the weather was subject. With no anxiety as to 
how she might fare, she was yet already not without 
some awe : she was at length on pilgrimage to the tem- 
ple of Isis ! 

Not until she was beyond sight of any house, did she 
begin to feel alone. It was a new sensation, and of a 
mingled sort. But the slight sense of anxiety and fear 


342 


MERCY CALLS ON GRANNY. 


343 


that made part of it, was soon overpowered by some- 
thing not unlike the exhilaration of a child escaped 
from school. This grew and grew until she felt like a 
wild thing that had been caught, and had broken loose. 
Now first, almost, she seemed to have begun to live, for 
now first was she free ! She might lie in the heather, 
walk in the stream, do as she pleased ! No one would 
interfere with her, no one say Don't! She felt stronger 
and fresher than ever in her life ; and the farther she 
went, the greater grew the pleasure. The little burn 
up whose banks, now the one and now the other, she 
was walking, kept on welcoming her unaccustomed feet 
to the realms of solitude and liberty. Forever it seemed 
coming to meet her, hasting, running steep, as if straight 
out of the heaven to which she was drawing nearer and 
nearer. The wind woke now and then, and blew on 
her for a moment, as if tasting her, to see what this 
young Psyche was that had floated up into the wild 
thin air of the hills. The incessant meeting of the 
brook made it a companion to her although it could 
not go her way, and was always leaving her. But it 
kept her from the utter loneliness she sought, for lone- 
liness is imperfect while sound is by, especially a sing- 
sound, and the brook was one of Nature’s self-playing 
song-instruments. But she came at length to a point 
where the ground was too rough to let her follow its 
path anymore, and turning from it, she began to climb 
a steep ridge. The growing and deepening silence as 
she went farther and farther from the brook, promised the 
very place for her purpose on the top of the heathery 
ridge. 

But when she reached it and looked behind her, lo, 
the valley she had left lay at her very feet ! The world 
had rushed after and caught her! She had not got 


344 


what’s mine’s mine. 


away from it! It was like being enchanted! She 
thought she was leaving it far behind, but the nature 
she sought to escape that she might find Nature, would 
not let her go ! It kept following her as if to see that 
she fell into no snare, neither was too sternly received 
by the loftier spaces. She could distinguish one of the 
laird’s men, ploughing in the valley below : she knew 
him by his red waistcoat ! Almost fiercely she turned 
and made for the next ridge : it would screen her from 
the world she had left ; it should not spy upon her ! 
The danger of losing her way back never suggested it- 
self. She had not learned that the look of things as 
you go, is not their look when you turn to go back ; 
that with your attitude their mood will have altered. 
Nature is like a lobster-pot : she lets you easily go on, 
but not easily return. 

When she gained the summit of the second ridge, 
she looked abroad on a country of which she knew 
nothing. It was like the face of an utter stranger. 
Not far beyond rose yet another ridge : she must see 
how the world looked from that ! On and on she went, 
crossing ridge after ridge, but no place invited her to 
stay and be still. 

She found she was weary, and spying in the midst of 
some short heather, a great stone, sat down upon it, 
and gave herself up to the rest that stole upon her. 
Though the sun was warm, the air was keen, and, hot 
with climbing, she turned her face to it, and drank in 
its refreshing with delight. Another sense than that of 
rest awoke in her; now first in her life the sense of 
absolute loneliness began to possess her — and it dif- 
fered from her expectation of it. She looked around ; 
not a trace of humanity was visible — nothing but 
brown and gray and green hills, with the clear sky over 


MERCY CALLS ON GRANNY. 


345 


her head, and in the north a black cloud creeping up 
from the horizon. And therewith suddenly descended 
upon her a something she had never known — did not 
now know ; it was as if the loneliness, or what is the 
same thing, the presence of her own being without an- 
other to qualify and make it reasonable and endurable, 
seized and held her. The silence gathered substance, 
grew as it were solid, and closing upon her, imprisoned 
her. Was it not rather that the Soul of Nature, unpre- 
vented, unthwarted by distracting influences, found a 
freer entrance to hers, but she, not yet in harmony with 
it, felt its contact as alien — as bondage therefore and 
not liberty ? She was nearer than ever she had been 
to knowing the presence of the God who is always 
nearer to us than aught else. Yea, something seemed, 
through the very persistence of its silence, to say to her 
at last, and keep saying, “ Here I am ! ” She looked 
behind her in sudden terror : no form was there. She 
sent out her gaze to the horizon : the huge waves of the 
solid earth stood up against the sky, sinking so slowly 
she could not see them sink : they stood mouldering 
away, biding their time. They were of those “who 
only stand and wait,” fulfilling the will of him who set 
them to crumble till the hour of the new heavens and 
the new earth arrive. There was no life visible between 
her and the great silent mouldering hills. On her 
right hand lay a blue segment of the ever restless sea, 
but so far that its commotion seemed a yet deeper rest 
than that of the immovable hills. 

She sat and sat, but nothing came, nothing seemed 
coming to her. The hope Ian had given her was not 
to be fulfilled ! Fot her there was no revelation ! She 
was not of the kind Nature could speak to ! 

She began to grow uncomfortable — to feel as if she 


346 


what’s mine’s mine, 


had done something wrong — as if she was a child put 
into the corner — a corner of the great universe, to 
learn to be sorry for something. Certainly something 
was wrong with her — but what? Why did she feel 
so uncomfortable? Was she so silly as to mind being 
alone? There was nothing in these mountains that 
would hurt her! The red deer were sometimes dan- 
gerous, but none were even within sight ! Yet some- 
thing like fear was growing in her ! Why should she 
be afraid? Everything about her certainly did look 
strange, as if she had nothing to do with it, and it had 
nothing to do with her ; but that was all ! Ian Macruadh 
must be wrong ! How could there be any such bond 
as he said between Nature and the human heart, when 
the first thing she felt when alone with her, was fear ! 
The world was staring at her ! She was the centre of 
a fixed, stony regard from all sides ! The earth, and 
the sea, and the sky, were watching her ! She did not 
like it ! She would rise and shake off the fancy ! But 
she did not rise ; something held her to her thinking. 
Just so, she would, when a child in the dark, stand 
afraid to move lest the fear itself, lying in wait like a 
tigress, should at her first motion pounce upon her. 
The terrible, persistent silence ! — would nothing break 
it ! And there was in herself a response to it — some- 
thing that was in league with it, and kept telling her 
that things were not all right with her ; that she ought 
not to be afraid yet had good reason for being afraid ; 
that she knew of no essential safety. There must be 
some refuge, some impregnable hiding-place, for the 
thing was a necessity, and she ought to know of it! 
There must be a human condition of never being afraid, 
of knowing nothing to be afraid of ! She wondered 
whether, if she were quite good, went to church twice 


MERCY CALLS ON GRANNY. 


347 


every Sunday, and read her bible every morning, she 
would come not to be afraid of — she did not know 
what. It would be grand to have no fear of person or 
thing ! She was sometimes afraid of her own father, 
even when she knew no reason ! How that mountain 
with the horn kept staring at her ! 

It was all nonsense ! She was silly ! She would get 
up and go home : it must be time ! 

But things were not as they should be ! Something 
was required of her ! Was it God wanting her to do 
something? She had never thought whether he re- 
quired anything of her! She must be a better girl! 
Then she would have God with her, and not be afraid ! 

And all the time it was God near her that was mak- 
ing her unhappy. For, as the Son of Man came not to 
send peace on the earth but a sword, so the first visit 
of God to the human soul is generally in a cloud of 
fear and doubt, rising from the soul itself at his ap- 
proach. The sun is the cloud-dispeller, yet often he 
must look through a fog if he would visit the earth at 
all. The child, not being a son, does not know his 
father. He may know he is what is called a father ; 
what the word means he does not know. How then 
should he understand when the father comes to deliver 
him from his paltry self, and give him life indeed ? 

She tried to pray. She said, “ Oh God ! forgive me, 
and make me good. I want to be good ! ” Then she 
rose. 

She went some little way without thinking where she 
was going, and then found she did not even know from 
what direction she had come. A sharp new fear shot 
through her heart : quite different from the former, now 
she was lost ! She had told no one she was going any- 
where ! No one would have a notion where to look for 


348 


what’s mine’s mine. 


her ! She had been beginning to feel hungry, but fear 
drove hunger away. All she knew was that she must not 
stay there. Here was nowhere ; walking on she might 
come somewhere — that is, among human beings ! So 
out she set on her weary travel from nowhere to some- 
where, giving Nature little thanks. She did not suspect 
that her grandmother had been doing anything for her, 
by the space around her, or that now, by the trackless- 
ness, the lostness, she was doing yet more. On and on 
she walked, climbing the one hillside and descending 
the other, going she knew not whither, hardly hoping 
she drew one step nearer home. 

All at once her strength went from her. She sat 
down and cried. But with the tears came the thought 
how the chief and his brother talked of God. She had 
heard in church that men ought to cry to God in their 
troubles. Broken verses of a certain psalm came to 
her, saying God delivered those who cried to him from 
things even they had brought on themselves, and she 
had been doing nothing wrong ! She tried to trust in 
him, but could not : he was as far from her as the blue 
heavens ! True, it bent over all, but its one great eye 
was much too large to see the trouble she was in ! 
What did it matter to the blue sky if she fell down and 
withered up to bones and dust ! She well might — for 
here no foot of man might pass till she was a thing ter- 
rible to look at ! If there was nobody where seemed to 
be nothing, how fearfully empty was the universe ! Ah, 
if she had God for her friend ! what if he was her 
friend, and she had not known it because she never 
spoke to him, never asked him to do anything for her ? 
It was horrible to think it could be a mere chance 
whether she got home, or died there ! She would pray 
to God ! She would ask him to take her home ! 


MERCY CALLS ON GRANNY. 


349 


A wintory blast came from the north. The black 
cloud had risen, and was now spreading over the zenith. 
Again the wind came with an angry burst and snarl. 
Snow came swept upon it in hard sharp little pellets. 
She started up, and forgot to pray. 

Some sound in the wind or some hidden motion of 
memory all at once let loose upon her another fear, 
which straight was agony. A rumor had reached the 
New House the night before, that a leopard had broken 
from a caravan, and got away to the hills. It was but 
a rumor ; some did not believe it, and the owners con- 
tradicted it, but a party had set out with guns and dogs. 
It was true ! it was true ! There was the terrible creat- 
ure crouching behind that stone ! He was in every 
clump of heather she passed, swinging his tail, and 
ready to spring upon her ! He must be hungry by this 
time, and there was nothing there for him to eat but 
her! By and by, however, she was too cold to be 
afraid, too cold to think, and presently, half frozen, and 
faint for lack of food, was scarce able to go a step 
farther. She saw a great rock, sank down in the shelter 
of it, and in a minute was asleep. 

She slept for some time, and woke a little refreshed. 
The wonder is that she woke at all. It was dark, and 
her first consciousness was ghastly fear. The wind 
had ceased, and the storm was over. Little snow had 
fallen. The stars were all out overhead, and the great 
night was round her, enclosing, watching her. She tried 
to rise, and could just move her limbs. Had she fallen 
asleep again, she would not have lived through the 
night. But it is idle to talk of what would have beeft; 
nothing could have been but what was. Mercy won- 
dered afterwards that she did not lose her reason. She 
must, she thought, have been trusting somehow in God. 


350 


what’s mine’s mine. 


It was terribly dreary. Sure never one sorer needed 
God’s help ! And what better reason could there be 
for helping her than that she so sorely needed it ! Per- 
haps God had let her walk into this trouble that she 
might learn she could not do without him ! She would 
try to be good ! How terrible was the world, with such 
wide spaces and nobody in them ! 

And all the time, though she did not know it, she 
was sobbing and weeping. 

The black silence was torn asunder by the report of 
a gun. She started up with a strange mingling of hope 
and terror, gave a loud cry, and sank senseless. The 
leopard would be upon her ! 

Her cry was her deliverance. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


IN THE TOMB. 

T HE brothers had that same morning paid their visit 
to the tomb, and there spent the day after their 
usual fashion, intending to go home the same night, 
and as the old moon was very late in rising, to take the 
earlier and rougher part of the way in the twilight. 
Just as they were setting out, however, what they 
rightly judged a passing storm came on, and they de- 
layed their departure. By the time the storm was 
over, it was dark, and there was no use in hurrying ; 
they might as well stop a while, and have the moon 
the latter part of the way. When at length they were 
again on the point of starting, they thought they heard 
something like sounds of distress, but the darkness 
making search difficult, and unsatisfactory, the chief 
thought of firing his gun, when Mercy’s cry guided 
them to where she lay. Alister’s heart nearly stood 
still at sight of her, and, at the thought of what she 
must have gone through. They carried her in, laid her 
on the bed, and did what they could to restore her, till 
she began to come to herself. Then they left her, that 
she might not see them without preparation, and sat 
down by the fire in the outer room, leaving the door 
open between the two. 

“I see how it is!” said Alister. “You remember, 
Ian, what you said to her about giving nature an oppor- 
tunity of exerting her influence ? Mercy has been fol- 
351 


352 


what’s mike’s mine. 


lowing your advice, and has lost her way among the 
hills ! ” 

“ That was so long ago ! ” returned Ian thoughtfully. 

“Yes — when the weather was not fit for it. It is 
not fit now, but she has ventured ! ” 

“ I believe you are right ! I thought there was some 
reality in her ! — But she must not hear us talking 
about her ! ” 

When Mercy came to herself, she thought at first 
that she lay where she had fallen, but presently per- 
ceived that she was covered, and had something hot at 
her feet : was she in her own bed ? was it all a terrible 
dream, that she might know what it was to be lost, and 
think of God! She put out her arm: her hand went 
against cold stone. The dread thought rushed in — 
that she was buried — was lying in her grave — to lie 
there till the trumpet should sound, and the dead be 
raised. She was not horrified ; her first feeling was 
gladness that she had prayed before she died. She had 
been taught at church that an hour might come when it 
would be of no use to pray — the hour of an unbeliev- 
ing death : was it of no use to pray now, but her prayer 
before she died might be of some avail ! She wondered 
that she was not more frightened, for in sooth it was a 
dreary prospect before her : long and countless years 
must pass ere again she heard the sound of voices, again 
saw the light of the sun ! She was half awake and half 
dreaming ; the faintness of her swoon yet upon her, the 
repose following her great weariness, and the lightness 
of her brain from want of food, made her indifferent 
— almost happy. She could lie so a long time she 
thought. 

At length she began to hear sounds, and they were of 
human voices. She had companions then in the grave ! 


IN THE TOMB. 


353 


she was not doomed to a solitary waiting for judgment! 
She must be in some family vault among strangers ! 
She hoped they were nice people : it was very desirable 
to be buried with nice people ! 

Then she saw a reddish light. It was a fire — far 
off ! Was she in the bad place? Were those shapes 
two demons, waiting till she had got over her dying ? 
She listened : — “ That will divide her between us,” said 
one. “Yes,” answered the other; “there will be no 
occasion to cut it ! ” What dreadful thing could they 
mean ? But surely she had heard their voices before ! 
She tried to speak, but could not. 

“We must come again soon ! ” said one. “ At this 
rate it will take a life-time to carve the tomb.” 

“ If we were but at the roof of it ! ” said the other. 
“I long to tackle the great serpent of eternity, and lay 
him twining and coiling and undulating all over it ! I 
dream about those tombs before ever they were broken 
into — royally furnished in the dark, waiting for the 
souls to come back to their old, brown, dried up 
bodies ! ” 

Here one of them rose and came towards her grow- 
ing bigger and blacker as he came, until he stood by 
the bedside. He laid his hand on her wrist, and felt 
her pulse. It was Ian ! She could not see his face for 
there was no light on it, but she knew his shape, his 
movements ! She was saved ! 

He saw her wide eyes, two great spiritual nights, 
gazing up at him. 

“ Ah, you are better, Miss Mercy ! ” he said cheerily. 
“ Now you shall have some tea ! ” 

Something inside her was weeping for joy, but her 
outer self was quite still. She tried again to speak, and 
uttered only a few, inarticulate sounds. Then came 


354 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Alister on tiptoe, and they stood both by the bed-side, 
looking down on her. 

“ I shall be all right presently!” she managed at 
length to say. “ I’m so glad I’m not dead ! I thought 
I was dead ! ” 

“You would soon have been if we had not found 
you ! ” replied Alister. 

“ Was it you that fired the gun ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ I was so frightened ! ” 

“ It saved your life, thank God ! for then you cried 
out.” 

“ Fright was your door out of fear ! ” said Ian. 

“ I thought it was the leopard ! ” 

“ I did bring my gun because of the leopard,” said 
Alister. 

“ It was true about him then ? ” 

“ He is out.” 

“ And now it is quite dark.” 

“ It doesn’t signify ; we’ll take a lantern ; I’ve got my 
gun, and Ian has his dirk ! ” 

“ Where are you going then ? ” asked Mercy, still 
confused ! 

“ Home, of course.” 

“ Oh, yes, of course ! I will get up in a minute.” 

“ There is plenty of time,” said Ian. “ You must eat 
something before you get up. We have nothing but 
oatcakes, I am sorry to say ! ” 

“ I think you promised me some tea,” said Mercy. 
“ I don’t feel hungry.” 

“You shall have the tea. When did you eat last?” 

“Not since breakfast.” 

“It is a marvel you are able to speak! You must 
try to eat some oatcake.” 


IN THE TOMB. 


355 


“ I wish I hadn’t taken that last slice of deer-ham ! ” 
said Alister ruefully. 

“ I will eat if I can,” said Mercy. 

They brought her a cup of tea and some pieces of oat- 
cake ; then, having lighted her a candle, they left her. 

She sipped her tea, managed to eat a little of the dry 
but wholesome food, and found herself capable of get- 
ting up. It was the strangest bedroom ! she thought. 
Everything was cut out of the live rock. The dressing- 
table might have been a sarcophagus ! She kneeled by 
the bedside and tried to thank God. Then she opened 
the door. The chief rose at the sound of it. 

“ I’m sorry,” he said, “ that we have no woman to 
wait on you.” 

“ I want nothing, thank you ! ” answered Mercy, 
feeling very weak and ready to cry, but restraining her 
tears. “ What a curious house this is ! ” 

“It is a sort of doll’s house my brother and I have 
been at work upon for nearly fifteen years. We meant, 
when summer was come, to ask you all to spend a day 
with us up here.” 

“ When first we went to work on it,” said Ian, “ we 
used to tell each other tales in which it bore a large 
share, and Alister’s were generally about a lost princess 
taking refuge in it ! ” 

“ And now it is come true ! ” said Alister. 

“ What an escape I have had ! ” 

“ I do not like to hear you say that ! ” returned Ian. 
“ You have been taken care of all the time. If you 
had died in the cold, it would not have been because 
God had forgotten you ; you would not have been lost.” 

“ I wanted to know,” said Mercy, “ whether Nature 
would speak to me. It was of no use ! She never 
came near me ! ” 


356 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I think she must have come without your knowing 
her,” answered Ian. “ But we shall have a talk about 
that afterward, when you are quite rested ; we must 
prepare for home now.” 

Mercy’s heart sank within her — she felt so weak and 
sleepy ! How was she to go back over all that rough moun- 
tain-way ! But she dared not ask to be left — with the 
leopard about ! He might come down the chimney ! 

She soon found that the brothers had never thought 
of her walking. They wrapt her in Ian’s plaid. Then 
they took the chief’s, which was very strong, and hav- 
ing folded it twice lengthwise, drew each an end of it 
over his shoulders, letting it hang in a loop between 
them : in this loop they made her seat herself, and put- 
ting each an arm behind her, tried how they could all 
get on. After a few shif tings and accommodations, 
they found the plan likely to answer. So they locked 
the door, and left the fire glowing on the solitary 
hearth. 

To Mercy it was the strangest journey — an experi- 
ence never to be forgotten. The tea had warmed her, 
and the air revived her. It was not very cold, for only 
now and then blew a little puff of wind. The stars 
were brilliant overhead, and the wide void of the air be- 
tween her and the earth below seemed full of wonder 
and mystery. Now and then she fancied some distant 
sound the cry of the leopard : he might be coming 
nearer and nearer as they went ! but it rather added to 
the strange pleasure of the night, making it like a terri- 
ble story read in the deserted nursery, with the distant 
noise outside of her brothers and sisters at play. The 
motion of her progress by and by became pleasant to 
her. Sometimes her feet would brush the tops of the 
heather ; but when they came to rocky ground, they 


IN THE TOMB. 


857 


always shortened the loop of the plaid. To Mercy’s 
inner ear came the sound of words she had heard at 
church : “ He shall give his angels charge over thee, 
and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any 
time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” Were not 
these two men God’s own angels ! 

They scarcely spoke, except when they stopped to 
take breath, but went on and on with a steady, 
rhythmic, silent trudge. Up and down the rough hill, 
and upon the hardly less rough hill-road, they had 
enough ado to heed their steps. Now and then they 
would let her walk a little way, but not far. She was 
neither so strong nor so heavy as a fat deer, they said. 

They were yet high among the hills, when the pale, 
withered, wasted shred of the old moon rose above the 
uph caved boat-like back of one of the battlements of 
the horizon-rampart. With disconsolate face, now lost, 
now found again, always reappearing where Mercy had 
not been looking for her, she accompanied them the 
rest of their journey, and the witch-like creature 
brought out the whole character of the night. Rocked 
in her wonderful swing, Mercy was not quite sure that 
she was not dreaming the strangest, pleasantest dream. 
Were they not fittest for a dream, this star and moon 
beset night — this wind that now and then blew so 
eerie and wild, yet did not wake her — this gulf around, 
above, and beneath her, through which she was borne as 
if she had indeed died, and angels were carrying her 
through wastes of air to some unknown region afar? 
Except when she brushed the heather, she forgot that 
the earth was near her. The arms around her were the 
arms of men and not angels, but how far above this 
lower world dwelt the souls that moved those strong 
limbs I What a small creature she was beside them ! 


358 


what’s mine’s mine. 


how unworthy of the labor of their deliverance ! Her 
awe of the one kept growing ; the other she could trust 
with heart as well as brain ; she could never be afraid 
of him ! To the chief she turned to shadow her from 
Ian. 

When they came to the foot of the path leading up 
to Mistress Conal’s cottage, there, although it was dark 
night, sat the old woman on a stone. 

“ It’s a sorrow you are carrying home with you, 
chief ! ” she said in Gaelic. “ As well have saved a 
drowning man ! ” 

She did not rise or move, but spoke like one talking 
by the fireside. 

“ The drowning man has to be saved, mother ! ” 
answered the chief, also in Gaelic ; “ and the sorrow in 
your way has to be taken with you. It won’t let you 
pass ! ” 

“ True, my son ! ” said the woman ; “ but it makes 
the heart sore that sees it ! ” 

“ Thank you for the warning then, but welcome the 
sorrow ! ” he returned. “ Good night.” 

“ Good night, chief’s sons both ! You’re your father’s 
anyway ! ” she replied. “ Did he not one night bring 
home a frozen fox in his arms, to warm him by his fire ! 
But when he had warmed him — he turned him out ! ” 

It was quite clear when last they looked at the sky, 
but the moment they left her, it began to rain heavily. 

So fast did it rain, that the men, fearing for Mercy, 
turned off the road, and went down a steep descent, to 
make straight across their own fields for the cottage ; 
and just as they reached the bottom of the descent, al- 
though they had come all the rough way hitherto with- 
out slipping or stumbling once, the chief fell. lie rose 
in consternation; but finding that Mercy, upheld by 


IN THE TOMB. 


359 


Ian, had simply dropped on her feet, and taken no hurt, 
relieved himself by unsparing abuse of his clumsiness. 
Mercy laughed merrily, resumed her place in the plaid, 
and closed her eyes. She never saw where they were 
going, for she opened them again only when they 
stopped a little as they turned into the fir-clump before 
the door. 

“ Where are we ? ” she asked ; but for answer they 
carried her straight into the house. 

“We have brought you to our mother instead of 
yours,” said Alister. “ To get wet would have been 
the last straw on the back of such a day. We will let 
them know at once that you are safe.” 

Lady Macruadh, as the highlanders generally called 
her, made haste to receive the poor girl with that sym- 
pathetic pity which, of all good plants, flourishes most in 
the Celtic heart. Her mother had come to her in con- 
sternation at her absence, and the only comfort she 
could give her was the suggestion that she had fallen 
in with her sons. She gave her a warm bath, put her 
to bed, and then made her eat, so preparing her for a 
healthful sleep. And she did sleep, but dreamed of dark- 
ness and snow and leopards. 

As men were out searching in all directions, Alister, 
while Ian went to the New House, lighted a beacon on 
the top of the old castle to bring them back. By the 
time Ian had persuaded Mrs. Palmer to leave Mercy in 
his mother’s care for the night, it was blazing beauti- 
fully. 

In the morning it was found that Mercy had a bad 
cold, and could not be moved. But the cottage, small 
as it was, had more than one guest-chamber, and Mrs. 
Macruadh was delighted to have her to nurse. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


AT A HIGH SCHOOL. 


HEN Mercy was able to go down to the drawing- 



V V room, she found the evenings pass as evenings 
never passed before ; and during the day, although her 
mother and Christina came often to see her, she had 
time and quiet for thinking. And think she must, for 
she found herself in a region of human life so different 
from any she had hitherto entered, that in no other 
circumstances would she have been able to recognize 
even its existence. Everything said or done in it 
seemed to acknowledge something understood. Life 
went on with a continuous lean towards something 
rarely mentioned, plainly uppermost; it embodied a 
tacit reference of everything to some code so thoroughly 
recognized that occasion for alluding to it was unfre- 
quent. Its inhabitants appeared to know things which 
her people did not even suspect. The air of the brothers 
especially was that of men at their ease yet ready to 
rise — of men whose loins were girded, alert for an ex- 
pected call. 

Under their influence a new idea of life, and the 
world, and the relations of men and things, began to 
grow in the mind of Mercy. There was a dignity, al- 
most grandeur, about the simple life of the cottage, and 
the relation of its inmates to all they came near. No 
one of them seemed to live for self, but each to be 
thinking and caring for the others and for the clan. 


360 


AT A HIGH SCHOOL. 


361 


She awoke to see that manners are of the soul ; that 
such as she had hitherto heard admired were not to be 
compared with the simple, almost peasant-like dignity 
and courtesy of the chief ; that the natural grace, ac- 
customed ease, and cultivated refinement of* Ian’s car- 
riage, while his words, his gesture, his looks, came out 
in attention and service to the lowly even more than 
in converse with his equals ; every expression born of 
contact, witnessed a directness and delicacy of recogni- 
tion she could never have imagined. The moment he 
began to speak to another, he seemed to pass out of 
himself, and sit in the ears of the other to watch his 
own words, lest his thoughts should take such sound or 
shape as might render them unwelcome, or weak. If 
they were not to be pleasant words, they should yet be 
no more unpleasant than was needful ; they should not 
hurt save in the nature of that which they bore ; the 
truth should receive no injury by admixture of his per- 
sonality. He heard with his own soul, and was careful 
over the other soul as one of like kind. So delicately 
would he initiate what might be communion with an- 
other, that to a nature too dull or selfish to understand 
him, he gave offence by the very graciousness of his 
approach. 

It was through her growing love to Alister that 
Mercy became able to understand Ian, and perceived 
at length that her dread, almost dislike of him at first, 
was owing solely to her mingled incapacity and un- 
worthiness. Before she left the cottage, it was spring 
time in her soul ; it had begun to put forth the buds of 
eternal life. Such buds are not unfrequently nipped ; 
but even if they are, if a dull, false, commonplace frost 
close in, and numb the half-wakened spirit back into its 
wintry sleep, that sleep will ever after be haunted with 


362 


what’s mine’s mine. 


some fainting airs of the paradise those buds prophe- 
sied. In Mercy’s case they were to grow into spiritual 
eyes — to open and see through all the fogs and tu- 
mults of this phantom world, the light and reality of the 
true, the spiritual world everywhere around her — as the 
opened eyes of the prophet saw the mountains of Sa- 
maria full of horses of fire and chariots of fire around 
him. Every throb of true love, however mingled with 
the foolish and the false, is a bourgeoning of the buds 
of life eternal — ah, how far from leaves ! how much 
farther from flowers ! 

Ian was high above her, so high that she shrank from 
him ; there seemed a whole heaven of height between 
them. It would fill her with a kind of despair to see 
him at times sit lost in thought: he was where she 
could never follow him ! He was in a world which, to 
her childish thought, seemed not the world of humanity ; 
and she would turn, with a sense of both seeking and 
finding, to the chief. She imagined he felt as she did, 
saw between his brother and him a gulf he could not 
cross. She did not perceive this difference, that Alis- 
ter knew the gulf had to be crossed. At such a time, 
too, she had seen his mother regarding him with a sim- 
ilar expression of loss, but with a mingling of anxiety 
that was hers only. It was sweet to Mercy to see in 
the eyes of Alister, and in his whole bearing towards 
his younger brother, that he was a learner like herself, 
that they were scholars together in Ian’s school. 

A hunger after something beyond her, a something 
she could not have described, awoke in her. She needed 
a salvation of some kind, towards which she must grow. 
She needed a change which she could not understand 
until it comes — a change the greatest in the universe, 
but which, man being created with the absolute neces- 


AT A HIGH SCHOOL. 


363 


sity for it, can be no violent transformation ; can be 
only a grand process in the divine idea of develop- 
ment. 

She began to feel a mystery in the world, and in all 
the looks of it — a mystery because a meaning. She 
saw a jubilance in every sunrise, a sober sadness in 
every sunset ; heard a whispering of strange secrets in 
the wind of the twilight ; perceived a consciousness of 
unknown bliss in the song of the lark; — and was 
aware of a something beyond it all, now and then fill- 
ing her with wonder, and compelling her to ask, “ What 
does it, what can it mean ? ” Not once did she suspect 
that Nature had indeed begun to deal with her ; not 
once suspect, although from childhood accustomed to 
hear the name of Love taken in vain, that love had any- 
thing to do with these inexplicable experiences. 

Let no one, however, imagine he explains such ex- 
periences by suggesting that she was in love ! That 
were but to mention another mystery as having intro- 
duced the former. For who in heaven or in earth has 
fathomed the marvel betwixt the man and the woman ? 
Least of all the man or woman who has not learned to 
regard it with reverence. There is more in this love 
to uplift us, more to condemn the lie in us, than in any 
other inborn drift of our being. From it flow all the 
other redeeming relations of life. It is the hold God 
has of us with his right hand, while death is the hold 
he has of us with his left. Love and death are the two 
marvels, yea the two terrors — but the one goal of our 
history. 

It was love, in part, that now awoke in Mercy a 
hunger and thirst after heavenly things. This is a di- 
rection of its power little heeded by its historians; 
its earthly side occupies almost all their care. Because 


364 


what’s mine’s mine. 


lovers are not worthy of even its earthly aspect, it palls 
upon them, and they grow weary, not of love, but of 
their lack of it. The want of the heavenly in it has 
caused it to perish : it had no salt. From those that 
have not is taken away that which they have. Love 
without religion is the plucked rose. Religion without 
love — there is no such thing. Religion is the bush 
that bears all the roses ; for religion is the natural con- 
dition of man in relation to the eternal facts, that is the 
truths, of his own being. To live is to love ; there is 
no life but love. What shape the love puts on, depends 
on the persons between whom is the relation. The 
poorest love with religion, is better, because truer, 
therefore more lasting, more genuine, more endowed 
with the possibility of persistence — that is, of infinite 
development, than the most passionate devotion be- 
tween man and woman without it. 

Thus together in their relation to Ian, it was natural 
that Mercy and the chief should draw yet more to each 
other. Mercy regarded Alister as a big brother in the 
same class with herself, but able to help her. Quickly 
they grew intimate. In the simplicity of his large na- 
ture, the chief talked with Mercy as openly as a boy, 
laying a heart bare to her such that, if the world had 
many like it, the kingdom of heaven would be more 
than at hand. He talked as to an old friend in perfect 
understanding with him, from whom he had nothing to 
gain or to fear. There was never a compliment on the 
part of the man, and never a coquetry on the part of 
the girl — a dull idea to such as, without compliment 
or coquetry could hold no intercourse, having no other 
available means. Mercy had never like her sister, cul- 
tivated the woman’s part in the low game ; and her 
truth required but the slightest stimulus to make her 


AT A HIGH SCHOOL. 


365 


incapable of it. With such a man as Alister she could 
use only a simplicity like his ; not thus to meet him 
would have been to decline the honoring friendship. 
Dark and plain, though with an interesting face and 
fine eyes, she had received no such compliments as had 
been showered upon her sister; it was an unspoiled 
girl, with a heart alive though not yet awake, that was 
brought under such good influences. Nor do I know 
better influences under which she could have been 
brought. What better influences for her, for any wo- 
man, than those of unselfish men? what influences so 
good for any man as those of unselfish women ? Every 
man that hears and learns of a worthy neighbor, comes 
to the Father ; every man that hath heard and learned 
of the Father comes to the Lord; every man that 
comes to the Lord, he leads back to the Father. To 
hear Ian speak one word about Jesus Christ, was 
for a true man to be thenceforth truer. To him 
the Lord was not a theological personage, but a 
man present in the world, who had to be understood 
and obeyed by the will and heart and soul, by the 
imagination and conscience of every other man. If 
what Ian said was true, this life was a serious affair, to 
be lived in downright earnest ! If God would have his 
creatures mind him, she must look to it ! She pondered 
what she heard. But she went always to Alister to 
have Ian explained ; and to hear him talk of Ian, re- 
vealed Alister to her. 

When Mercy left the cottage, she felt as if she were 
leaving home to pay a visit. The rich house was dull 
and uninteresting. She found that she had immediately 
to put in practice one of the lessons she had learned 

that the service of God is the service of those among 

whom he has sent us. She tried therefore to be cheer- 


366 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ful, and even to forestall her mother’s wishes. But life 
was harder than hitherto — so much more was required 
of her. 

The chief was falling thoroughly in love with Mercy, 
but it was some time before he knew it. With a heart 
full of tenderness towards everything human, he knew 
little of love special, and was gradually sliding into 
it without being aware of it. How little are we our 
own ! Existence is decreed us ; love and suffering arc 
appointed us. We may resist, we may modify ; but we 
cannot help loving, and we cannot help dying. We 
need God to keep us from hating. Great in goodness, 
yea absolutely good, God must be, to have a right to 
make us — to compel our existence, and decree its 
laws! Without his choice the chief was f allin v in 

o 

love. The woman was sent him ; his heart opened and 
took her in. Relation with her family was not desira- 
ble, but there she was! Ian saw, but said nothing. 
His mother saw it too. 

“ Nothing good will come of it ! ” she said, with a 
strong feeling of unfitness in the thing. 

“ Everything will come of it, mother, that God would 
have come of it,” answered Ian. “ She is an honest, 
good girl, and whatever comes of it must be good, 
whether pleasant or not.” 

The mother was silent. She believed in God, but 
not so thoroughly as to abjure the exercise of a subsi- 
diary providence of her own. The more people trust 
in God, the less will they trust their own judgments, or 
interfere with the ordering of events. The man or wo- 
man who opposes the heart’s desire of another, except 
in aid of righteousness, is a servant of Satan. 

“There is no action in fretting,” Ian would say, 
“ and not much in the pondering of consequences. True 


AT A HIGH SCHOOL. 


367 


action is the doing of duty, come of it heartache, defeat, 
or success.” 

“ You are a fatalist, Ian ! ” said his mother one day. 

“ Mother, I am ; the will of God is my fate ! ” an- 
swered Ian. “ lie shall do with me what he pleases ; 
and I will help him ! ” 

She took him in her arms and kissed him. She hoped 
God would not be strict with him, for might not the 
very grandeur of his character be rooted in rebellion ? 
Might not some figs grow on some thistles? 

At length came the paternal summons for the Pal- 
mers to go to London. For a month the families had 
been meeting all but every day. The chief had begun 
to look deep into the eyes of the girl, as if searching 
there for some secret joy; and the girl, though she 
drooped her long lashes, did not turn her head away. 
And now separation, like death, gave her courage, and 
when they parted, Mercy not only sustained Alister’s 
look, but gave him such a look in return that he felt no 
need, no impulse to say anything. Their souls were 
satisfied, for they knew they belonged to each other. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 


A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. 


O entirely were the chief and his family out of the 



k_y world, that they had not yet a notion of the 
worldly relations of Mr. Peregrine Palmer. But the 
mother thought it high time to make inquiry as to his 
position and connections. She had an old friend in 
London, the wife of a certain vice-chancellor, with whom 
she held an occasional correspondence, and to her she 
wrote, asking if she knew anything of the family. 

Mrs. Macruadh was nowise free from the worldliness 
that has regard to the world’s regard. She would not 
have been satisfied that a daughter-in-law of hers should 
come of people distinguished for goodness and great- 
ness of soul, if they were, for instance, tradespeople. 
She would doubtless have preferred the daughter of an 
honest man, whatever his position, to the daughter of 
a scoundrel, even if he chanced to be a duke ; but she 
would not have been content with the most distin- 
guished goodness by itself. Walking after Jesus, she 
would have drawn to the side of Joanna rather than 
Martha or Mary ; and I fear sIiq would have conde- 
scended — just a little — to Mary Magdalen: repent- 
ance, however perfect, is far from enough to satisfy 
the holy squeamishness of not a few high-principled 
people who do not know what repentance means. 

Mrs. Macruadh was anxious to know that the girl 
was respectable, and so far worthy of her son. The 


368 


A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. 


369 


idea of such an inquiry would have filled Mercy’s par- 
ents with scornful merriment, as a thing ludicrous in- 
deed. People in their position, who could do this and 
that, whose name stood so high for this and that, who 
knew themselves well bred, who had one relation an 
admiral, another a general, and a marriage connection 
with some of the oldest families in the country — that 
one little better than a yeoman, a man who held the 
plough with his own big hands, should enquire into their 
social standing ! W as not Mr. Peregrine Palmer pre- 
pared to buy him up the moment he required to sell ! 
Was he not rich enough to purchase an earl’s daughter 
for his son, and an earl himself for his beautiful Chris- 
tina ! The thing would have seemed too preposterous. 

The answer of the vice-chancellor’s lady, burst, nev- 
ertheless, like a bombshell in the cottage. It was to 
this effect — The Palmers were known, if not just in 
the best, yet in very good society ; the sons bore sign 
of a defective pedigree, but the one daughter out was, 
thanks to her mother, fit to go anywhere. For her own 
part, wrote the London correspondent, she could not 
help smelling the grains : a distiller in Scotland, Mr. 
Peregrine Palmer had taken to brewing in England — 
was one of the firm Pulp & Palmer, owning half the 
public-houses in London, therefore high in the regard 
of the English nobility, if not actually within their cir- 
cle. — Thus far the satirical lady of the vice-chancellor. 

Horror fell upon the soul of the mother. The brewer 
was to her as the publican to the ancient Jew. Ho 
dealing in rags and marine stores, no scraping of a for- 
tune by pettifogging, chicane, and cheating, was to her 
half so abominable as the trade of a brewer. Worse 
yet was a brewer owning public-houses, gathering riches 
in half-pence wet with beer and smelling of gin. The 


370 


what’s mine’s mine. 


brewer was to her a moral pariah. But a distiller was 
worse. As she read, the letter dropped from her hands, 
and she threw them up in unconscious appeal to heaven. 
She saw a vision of bloated men and white-faced wo- 
men, drawing with trembling hands from torn pockets 
the money that had bought the wide acres of the Clan- 
ruadh. To think of the Mucruadli marrying the daugh- 
ter of such a man! In society few questions indeed 
were asked ; everywhere money was counted a blessed 
thing, almost however made ; none the less the damna- 
ble fact remained, that certain moneys were made, not 
in furthering the well-being of men and women, but in 
furthering their sin and degradation. The mother of 
the chief saw that, let the world wink itself to blind- 
ness, let it hide the roots of the money-plant in layer 
upon layer of social ascent, the flower for which an earl 
will give his daughter, has for the soil it grows in, not 
the, dead, but the diseased and dying, of loathsome 
bodies and souls of God’s men and women and children. 

She grew hot, she grew cold; she started up and 
paced hurriedly about the room. Her son the son-in- 
law of a distiller ! the husband oh his daughter ! The 
idea was itself abhorrence and contempt! Was he not 
one of the devil’s fishers of men, fishing the sea of the 
world for the souls of men and women to fill his infer- 
nal ponds withal ! His money was the fungous growth 
of the devil’s wine-cellars. How would the brewer or 
the distiller, she said, appear at the last judgment? 
How would her son hold up his head, if he cast in his 
lot with his ! But that he would never do ! Why 
should she be so perturbed ! in this matter at least 
there could be no difference between them ! Her noble 
Alister would be as much shocked as herself at the 
news ! Could the woman be a lady, grown on such a 


A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. 


371 


hot-bed ! Yet, alas! love could tempt far — could 
subdue the impossible ! 

She could not rest ; she must find one of them ! Not 
a moment longer could she remain alone with the terri- 
ble disclosure. If Alister was in love with the girl, he 
must get out of it at once ! Never again would she en- 
ter the Palmers’ gate, never again set foot on their 
land ! The thought of it was unendurable ! She would 
meet them as if she did not see them ! But they should 
know her reason — and know her inexorable ! 

She went to the end of the ridge, and saw Ian sitting 
with his book on the other side of the burn. She called 
him to her, and handed him the letter. He took it, 
read it through, and gave it her back. 

“ Ian ! ” she exclaimed, “ have you nothing to say to 
that ? ” 

“ I beg your pardon, mother,” he answered ; “ I must 
think about it. Why should it trouble you so ! It is 
painfully annoying, but we have come under no obliga- 
tion to them ! ” 

“No; but Alister!” 

“ You cannot doubt that Alister will do what is 
right ! ” 

“ He will do what he thinks right ! ” 

“ Is not that enough, mother ? ” 

“ No,” she answered angrily ; “ he must do the thing 
that is right.” 

“ Whether he knows it or not ? Could he do the 
thing he thought wrong ? ” 

She was silent. 

“ Mother dear,” resumed Ian, “ the only way to get 
at what is right is to do what seems right. Even if we 
mistake there is no other way ! ” 

“ You would do evil that good may come ! oh, Ian ! ” 


372 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ No, mother ; evil that is not seen to be evil by one 
willing and trying to do right, is not counted evil to 
him. It is evil only to the person who either knows it 
to be evil, or does not care whether it be or not.” 

“ That is dangerous doctrine ! ” 

“ I will go farther, mother, and say, that for Alister 
to do what you thought right, if he did not think it 
right himself — even if you were right and he wrong — 
would be for him to do wrong, and blind himself to the 
truth.” 

“ A man may be to blame that he is not able to see 
the truth,” said the mother. 

“That is very true, but hardly such a man as Alis- 
ter, who would sooner die than do the thing he believed 
wrong. But why should you take it for granted that 
Alister will think differently from you ? ” 

“We don’t always think alike.” 

“ In matters of right and wrong, I never knew him or 
me think differently from you, mother ! ” 

“ He is very fond of the girl ! ” 

“And justly. I never saw one more in earnest, or 
more anxious to learn.” 

“ She might well be teachable to such teachers! ” 

“I don’t see that she has ever sought to commend 
herself to either of us, mother. I believe her heart just 
opened to the realities she had never had shown her be- 
fore. Come what may, she will never forget the things 
we have talked about.” 

“Nothing would make me trust her! ” 

« Why?” 

“ She comes of an abominable breed.” 

“ Is it your part, mother, to make her suffer for the 
sins of her fathers ? ” 

“ I make her suffer ! ” 


A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. 


373 


“ Certainly, mother — by changing yonr mind towards 
her, and suspecting her, the moment you learn cause tc 
be dissatisfied with her father.” 

“ The sins of the fathers are visited on the children ! 
— You will not dispute that ? ” 

“ I will grant more — that the sins of the fathers are 
often reproduced in the children. But it is nowhere 
said, ‘Thou shalt visit the sins of the fathers on the 
children.’ God puts no vengeance into our hands. I 
fear you are in danger of being unjust to the girl, 
mother ! — but then you do not know her so well as we 
do!” 

“ Of course not ! Every boy understands a woman 
better than his mother ! ” 

“The thing is exceedingly annoying, mother! Let 
us go and find Alister at once ! ” 

“ He will take it like a man of sense, I trust ! ” 

“ He will ! It will trouble him terribly, but he will 
do as he ought. Give him time and I don’t believe 
there is a man in the world to whom the right comes 
out clearer than to Alister.” 

The mother answered only with a sigh. 

“ Many a man,” remarked Ian, “ has been saved 
through what men call an unfortunate love affair ! ” 

“ Many a man has been lost by having his own way 
in one ! ” rejoined the mother. 

“As to lost I would not make up my mind about 
that for a few centuries or so ! ” returned Ian. “ A 
man may be allowed his own way for the discipline to 
result from it.” 

“I trust, Ian, you will not encourage him in any 
folly!” 

“ I shall have nothing to do but encourage him in his 
first resolves, mother ! ” 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


HOW ALISTER TOOK IT. 


HEY could not find Alister, who had gone to the 



-JL smithy. It was tea-time before he came home. 
As soon as he entered, his mother handed him the let- 


ter 


He read it without a word, laid it on the table beside 
his plate, and began to drink his tea, his eyes gleaming 
with a strange light. Ian kept silence also. Mrs. 
Macruadh cast a quick glance, now at the one, now at 
the other. She was in great anxiety, and could scarce 
restrain herself. She knew her boys full of inbred 
dignity and strong conscience, but was nevertheless 
doubtful how they would act. They could not feel as 
she felt, else would the hot blood of their race have at 
once boiled over ! Had she searched herself she 
might have discovered a latent dread that they might 
be nearer the right than she. Painfully she watched 
them, half conscious of a traitor in her bosom, judging 
the world’s judgment and not God’s. Her sons seemed 
on the point of concluding as she would not have them 
conclude : they would side with the young woman 
against their mother ! 

The reward of parents who have tried to be good, 
may be to learn, with a joyous humility, from their 
children. Mrs. Macruadh was capable of learning 
more, and was now going to have a lesson. 

When Alister pushed back his chair and rose, she 


374 


HOW ALISTER TOOK IT. 


375 


could refrain no longer. She could not let him go in 
silence. She must understand something of what was 
passing in his mind ! 

“ What do you think of that^ Alister ? ” she said. 

He turned to her with a faint smile, and answered, 

“ I am glad to know it, mother.” 

“ That is good. I was afraid it would hurt you ! ” 

“ Seeing the thing is so, I am glad to be made aware 
of it. The information itself you cannot expect me to 
be pleased with ! ” 

“No, indeed, my son! I am very sorry for you. 
After being so pleased with the young woman, — ” 
Alister looked straight in his mother’s face. 

“You do not imagine, mother,” he said, “it will 
make any difference as to Mercy ? ” 

“ Not make any difference ! ” echoed Mrs. Macruadh. 
“ What is it possible you can mean, Alister ? ” 

The anger that glowed in her dark eyes, made her 
look yet handsomer, proving itself not a mean, though 
it might be a misplaced anger. 

“Is she different, mother, from what she was before 
you had the letter? ” 

“ You did not then know what she was ! ” 

“Just as well as I do now. I have no reason to 
think she is not what I thought her.” 

“ You thought her the daughter of a gentleman ! ” 

“ Hardly. I thought her a lady, and such I think 
her still.” 

“ Then you mean to go on with it ? ” 

“ Mother dear,” said Alister, taking her by the hand, 
“ give me a little time. Not that I am in any doubt — 
but the news has been such a blow to me that — ” 

“ It must have been ! ” said the mother. 

“ — that I am afraid of answering you out of the 


376 


what’s mine’s mine. 


soreness of my pride, and Ian says the Truth is never 
angry.” 

“ I am quite willing you should do nothing in a 
hurry,” said the mother. 

She did not understand that he feared lest, in his 
indignation for Mercy, he should answer his mother as 
her son ought not. 

“ I will take time,” he replied. “ And here is Ian to 
help me ! ” 

“ Ah ! if only your father were here ! ” 

“He may be, mother! Anyhow I trust I shall do 
nothing he would not like ! ” 

“ He would sooner see son of his marry the daughter 
of a cobbler than of a brewer ! ” 

“ So would I, mother ! ” said Alister. 

“ I too,” said Ian, “ would much prefer that my sis- 
ter-in-law’s father were not a brewer.” 

“I suppose you are splitting some hair, Ian, but I 
don’t see it,” remarked his mother, who had begun to 
gather a little hope. “ You will be back by supper- 
time, Alister, I suppose?” 

“ Certainly, mother. We are only going to the vil- 
lage.” 

The brothers went. 

“ I knew everything you were thinking,” said Ian. 

“ Of course you did ! ” answered Alister. 

“ But I am very sorry ! ” 

“ So am I ! It is a terrible bore ! ” 

A pause followed. Alister burst into a laugh that 
was not merry. 

“ It makes me think of the look on my father’s face,” 
he said, “ once at the market, as he was putting in his 
pocket a bunch of more than usually dirty bank-notes. 
It seemed almost to make apology for him that he was 


HOW ALISTER TOOK IT. 


877 


my father — the notes were so dirty ! ‘ They’re better 
than they look, lad ! ’ he said.” 

“What are you thinking^ of, Alister?” 

“ Of nothing you are not thinking of, Ian, I hope in 
God ! Mr. Palmer’s money is worse than it looks.” 
“You frightened me for a moment, Alister! ” 

“ How could I, Ian ! ” 

“ It was but a nervo-mechanical fright. I knew well 
enough you could mean nothing I should not like. But 
I see trouble ahead, Alister ! ” 

“We shall be called a pack of fools, but what of 
that ! We shall be told the money itself was clean, how- 
ever dirty the hands that made it ! The money-grubs ! ” 
“ I would rather see you -hanged than pocketing a 
shilling of it ! ” 

“Of course you would! But the man who could 
pocket it, will be relieved to find it is only his daughter 
I care about.” 

“ There will be difficulty, Alister, I fear. How much 
have you said to Mercy ? ” 

“ I have said nothing definite.” 

“ But she understands ? ” 

“I think — I hope so. — Don’t you think Christina 
is much improved, Ian ? ” 

“ She is more pleasant.” 

“ She is quite attentive to you ! ” 

“She is pleased with me for saving her life. She 
does not like me — and I have just arrived at not dis- 
liking her.” 

“ There is a great change on her ! ” 

“ I doubt if there is any in her though ! ” 

“ I dare say she is only amusing herself with us in 
this outlandish place ! Mercy, I am sure, is quite dif- 
ferent ! ” 


378 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I would trust her with anything, Alister. That girl 
would die for the man she loved ! ” 

“ I would rather have her love, though we should 
never meet in this world, than the lands of my fath- 
ers!” 

“ What will you do then ? ” 

“ I will go to Mr. Palmer and say to him : 4 Give me 
your daughter. I am a poor man but we shall have 
enough to live upon. I believe she will be happy.’ ” 

“ I will answer for him : 4 I have the greatest regard 
for you, Macruadh. You are a gentleman, and that 
you are poor is not of the slightest consequence ; Mer- 
cy’s dowry shall be worthy the lady of a chief ! ’ — What 
then, Alister?” 

“ Fathers that love money must be glad to get rid of 
their daughters without a dowry ! ” 

“Yes, perhaps, when they are misers, or money is 
scarce, or wanted for something else. But when a 
poor man of position wanted to marry his daughter, a 
parent like Mr. Palmer would doubtless regard her 
dowry as a good investment. You must not think to es- 
cape that way, Alister ! What would you answer him ? ” 

“ I would say, 4 My dear sir,’ — I may say, 4 My dear 
sir,’ may I not? there is something about the man I 
like ! — 4 1 do not want your money. I will not have 
your money ! Give me your daughter and my soul will 
bless you.’ ” 

44 Suppose he should reply, 4 Do you think I am going 
to send my daughter from my house like a beggar? 
No, no, my boy! she must carry something with her! 
If beggars married beggars, the world would be full of 
beggars ! ’ — what would you say then ? ” 

44 1 would tell him I had conscientious scruples about 
taking his money.” 


HOW ALISTER TOOK IT. 


379 


“ He would tell you you were a fool, and not to be 
trusted with a wife. 4 Who ever heard such rubbish ! ’ 
he would say. 4 Scruples, indeed ! You must get over 
them! What are they?’ — What would you say 
then?” 

44 If it came to that, I should have no choice but tell 
him I had insuperable objections to the way his fortune 
was made, and could not consent to share it.” 

44 He would protest himself insulted, and swear, if his 
money was not good enough for you, neither was his 
daughter. What then ? ” 

44 1 would appeal to Mercy.” 

44 She is too young. It would be sad to set one of 
her years at variance with her family. I almost think 
I would rather you ran away with her. It is a terrible 
thing to go into a house and destroy the peace of those 
relations which are at the root of all that is good in the 
world.” 

44 1 know it ! I know it ! That is my trouble ! I am 
not afraid of Mercy’s consent, and I believe she would 
hold out. I am certain nothing would make her marry 
the man she did not love. But to turn the house into 
a hell about her — I shrink from that ! — The thing in- 
volves delicate and difficult questions. Do you think 
it necessary to provide against every contingency before 
taking the first step ? ” 

44 Indeed I do not ! The first step is enough. When 
that step has landed us, we start afresh. But of all 
things you must not lose your temper with the man. 
However despicable his money, you are his suitor ! 
And he may possibly not think you half good enough 
for her.” 

44 That would be a grand way out of the difficulty ! ” 

44 How?” 


880 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ It would leave me far freer to deal with her.” 

“ Perhaps. And in any case, the more we can hon- 
estly avoid reference to his money, the better. We 
are not called on to rebuke.” 

“ Small is my inclination to allude to it — so long as 
not a stiver of it seeks to cross to the Macruadh ! ” 

“ That is fast as fate. But there is another thing, 
Alister : — I fear lest you should ever forget that her 
birth and her connections are no more a part of the 
woman’s self than her poverty or her wealth.” 

“ I know it, Ian. I will not forget it.” 

“ There must never be a word concerning them ! ” 

“Nor a thought, Ian ! In God’s name I will be true 
to her.” 

They found Annie of the shop in a sad way. She 
had just had a letter from Lachlan, stating that he had 
not been well for some time, and that there was little 
prospect of his being able to fetch her. He prayed her 
therefore to go out to him ; and had sent money to pay 
her passage and her mother’s. 

“ When do you go ? ” asked the chief. 

“ My mother fears the voyage, and is very unwilling 
to turn her back on her own country. But oh, if Lach- 
lan die, and me not with him ! ” 

She could say no more. 

“ He shall not die for want of you ! ” said the laird. 
“ I will talk to your mother.” 

He went into the room behind. Ian remained in the 
shop. 

“ Of course you must go, Annie ! ” he said. 

“Indeed, sir, I must! But how to persuade my 
mother, I do not know ! And I cannot leave her even 
for Lachlan. No one would nurse him more tenderly 
than she, but she has a horror of the salt water, and 


IIOW ALISTER TOOK IT. 


381 


what she most dreads is being buried in it. She imag- 
ines herself drowning to all eternity ! ” 

“ My brother will persuade her.” 

“ I hope so, sir. I was just coming to him ! I should 
never hold up my head again — in this world or the 
next — either if I did not go, or if I went without my 
mother! Aunt Conal told me, about a month since, 
that I was going a long journey, and would never come 
back. I asked her if I was to die on the way, but she 
would not answer me. Anyhow I’m not fit to be his 
wife, if I’m not ready to die for him! Some people 
think it wrong to marry anybody going to die, but at 
the longest, you know, sir, you must part sooner than 
you would ! Not many are allowed to die together ! — 
You don’t think, do you, sir, that marriages go for noth- 
ing in the other world ? ” 

She spoke with a white face and brave eyes, and Ian 
was glad at heart. 

“ I do not, Annie,” he answered. “ ‘ The gifts of 
God are without repentance.’ He did not give you and 
Lachlan to each other to part you again ! Though you 
are not married yet, it is all the same so long as you 
are true to each other.” 

“ Thank you, sir ; you always make me feel strong ! ” 

Alister came from the back-room. 

“I think your mother sees it not quite so difficult 
now,” he said. 

The next time they went, they found them preparing 
to go. 

Now lan had nearly finished the book he was writ- 
ing about Russia, and could not begin another all at 
once. He must not stay at home doing nothing, and 
he thought that, as things were going from bad to worse 
in the highlands, he might make a voyage to Canada, 


382 


what’s mine’s mine. 


visit those of his clan, and see what ought to be done 
for such as must soon follow them. He would presently 
have a little money in his possession, and believed lie 
could not spend it better. He made up his mind there- 
fore to accompany Annie and her mother. lie did not 
like leaving Alister at such a critical jioint in his his- 
tory ; but, he said to himself a man might be helped 
too much and it might come that Mercy and he were 
in as much need of a refuge as the clan. 

I can not say no worldly pride mingled in the chief’s 
contempt for the distiller’s money ; his righteous soul 
was not yet clear of its inherited judgments as to what 
is dignified and what is not. He had in him still the 
prejudice of the land-holder, for ages instinctive, against 
both manufacture and trade. Various things had com- 
bined to foster in him also the belief that trade at least 
was never free from more or less of unfair dealing, and 
was therefore in itself a low pursuit. He had not ar- 
gued that nothing the Father of men has decreed can 
in its nature be contemptible, but must be capable of 
being nobly done. In the things that some one must 
do, the doer ranks in God’s sight, and ought to rank 
among his fellow-men, according to how he does it. 
The higher the calling the more contemptible the man 
who therein pursues his own ends. The humblest call- 
ing, followed on the principles of the divine caller, is a 
true and divine calling, be it scavenging, handicraft, 
shop-keeping, or book-making. Oh for the day when 
God and not the king, shall be regarded as* the fountain 
of honor! 

But the Macruadh regarded the calling of brewer or 
distiller as from the devil : he was not called of God to 
brew or distil ! From childhood his mother had taught 
him a horror of gain by corruption. She had taught, and 


HOW ALISTER TOOK IT. 


383 


he had learned, that the poorest of all justifications, the 
least fit to serve the turji of gentleman, logician, or 
Christian, was — “ If I do not touch this pitch, another 
will ; there will be just as much harm done ; and an- 
other instead of me will ham the benefit ; therefore it 
cannot defile me. — Offences must come, therefore I 
will do them ! ” Imagine our Lord in the brewing trade 
instead of the carpentering ! That better beer is pro- 
vided by the good brewer will not go far for brewer or 
drinker : it matters little that, by drinking good beer, 
the drunkard lives to be drunk the oftener. A brewer 
might do much to reduce drinking ; but that would be 
to reduce a princely income to a modest livelihood, and 
to content himself with the baker’s daughter instead 
of the duke’s. It followed that the Macruadh would 
rather have robbed a church than touched Mr. Pere- 
grine Palmer’s money. To rifle the tombs of the dead 
would have seemed to him pure righteousness beside 
sharing in that. He could give Mercy up ; he could not 
take such money with her! Much as he loved her, 
separate as he saw her, clearly as she was to him a 
woman undefiled and straight from God, it was yet a 
great trial to him that she should be the daughter of a 
person whose manufacture and trade were such. 

After much consideration, it was determined in the 
family conclave, that Ian should accompany the two 
women to Canada, note how things were going, and 
conclude what had best be done, should further exodus 
be found necessary. As, however, there had come bet- 
ter news of Lachlan, they would not, for several reasons, 
start before the month of September. A few of the 
poorest of the clan resolved to go with them. Partly 
for their sakes, partly because his own provision would 
be small, Ian would take passage also in the steerage. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 


LOVE. 

C HRISTINA went back to London considerably 
changed. Her beauty was greater far, for there 
was a new element in it — a certain atmosphere of dis- 
tances and shadows gave mystery to her landscape. 
Her weather, that is her mood, was now subject to 
changes which made her more attractive to many. Fits 
of wild gaiety alternated with glooms, through which 
would break flashes of feline playfulness, where pat and 
scratch were a little mixed. She had more admirers 
than ever, for she had developed points capable of in- 
teresting men of somewhat higher development than 
those she had hitherto pleased. At the same time she 
was more wayward and imperious with her courtiers. 
Gladly would she have thrown all the flattery once 
so coveted, into the rag-bag of creation, to have one 
approving smile from the sad-looking, gracious man, 
whom she knew happier, wandering alone over the 
hills, than if she were walking by his side. For an 
hour she would persuade herself that he cared for her a 
little; the next she would comfort herself with the 
small likelihood of his meeting another lady in Glen- 
ruadh. But then he had been such a traveller, had seen 
so much of the great world, that perhaps he was already 
lost to her ! It seemed but too probable, when she 
recalled the sadness with which he seemed sometimes 
overshadowed : it could not be a religious gloom, for 
384 


LOYE. 


385 


when he spoke of God his face shone, and his words 
were strong ! I think she mistook a certain gravity, 
like that of the Merchant of Venice, for sorrowfulness; 
though doubtless the peculiarity of his loss, as well as 
the loss itself, did sometimes make him sad. 

She had tried on him her little arts of subjugation, 
but the moment she began to love him, she not only 
saw their uselessness, but hated them. Her repellent 
behavior to her admirers, and her occasional excitement 
and oddity, caused her mother some anxiety, but as the 
season came to a close, she grew gayer, and was at 
times absolutely bewitching. The mother wished to 
go northward by degrees, paying visits on the way ; but 
her plan met with no approbation from the girls. Chris- 
tina longed for the presence and voice of Ian in the 
cottage-parlor, Mercy for a hill-side with the chief; 
both longed to hear them speak to each other in their 
own great way. And they talked so of the delights of 
their highland home that the mother began to feel the 
mountains, the sea, and the islands, drawing her to a 
land of peace, where things went well, and the world 
knew how to live. But the stormiest months of her 
life were about to pass among those dumb mountains ! 

After a long and eager journey, the girls were once 
more in their rooms at the New House. 

Mercy went to her window, and stood gazing from 
it upon the mountain-world, faint-lighted by the north- 
ern twilight. She might have said with Portia : — 

This night methinks is but the daylight sick ; 

It looks a little paler: ’tis a day, 

Such as the day is when the sun is hid. 

She could see the dark bulk of the hills, sharpened 
to a clear edge against the pellucid horizon, but with 


386 


what’s mine’s mine. 


no color, and no visible featuring of their great fronts. 
When the sun rose, it would reveal innumerable varie- 
ties of surface, by the mottling of endless shadows ; 
now all was smooth as an unawakened conscience. By 
the shape of a small top that rose against the greenish 
sky betwixt the parting lines of two higher hills, where 
it seemed to peep out over the marge into the infinite, 
as a little man through the gap between the heads of 
taller neighbors, she knew the roof of the tomb ; and 
she thought how, just below there, away as it seemed 
in the high-lifted solitudes of heaven, she had lain ii 
the clutches of death, all the time watched and defended 
by the angel of a higher life who had been with he? 
ever since first she came to Glenruadh, waking her ou( 
of such a stupidity, such a non-existence, as now she 
could scarce see possible to human being. It was true 
her waking had been one with her love to that human 
East which first she saw as she opened her eyes, and 
whence first the light of her morning had flowed — the 
man who had been and was to her the window of God ! 
But why should that make her doubt ? God made man 
and woman to love each other : why should not the 
waking to love and the waking to truth come together, 
seeing both were of God ? If the chief were never to 
speak to her again, she would never go back from what 
she had learned of him ! If she ever became careless 
of truth and life and God, it would but show that she 
had never truly loved the chief ! 

As she stood gazing on the hill-top, high landmark 
of her history, she felt as if the earth were holding her 
up toward heaven, an offering to the higher life. The 
hill grew an altar of prayer on which her soul was lying, 
dead until taken up into life by the arms of the Father. 
A deep content pervaded her heart. She turned with 


LOVE. 


387 


her weight of peace, lay down, and went to sleep in 
the presence of her Life. 

Christina looked also from her window, but her 
thoughts were not like Mercy’s, for her heart was 
mainly filled, not with love of Ian, but with desire 
that Ian should love her. She longed to be his queen 
— the woman of all women he had seen. The sweet 
repose of the sleeping world wrought in her — not 
peace, but weakness. Her soul kept leaning towards 
Ian ; she longed for his arms to shut out the alien 
nature lying so self-satisfied all about her. To her the 
presence of God took shape as an emptiness — an ab- 
sence. The resting world appeared to her cold, un- 
sympathetic, heedless ; its peace was but heartlessness. 
The soft N pellucid chrysolite of passive heavenly 
thought, was a merest arrangement, a common fact, 
meaning nothing to her. 

She was hungry, not merely after bliss, but after 
distinction in bliss; not after growth, but after ac- 
knowledged superiority. She needed to learn that she 
was nobody — that if the world were peopled with 
creatures like her, it would be no more worth sustain- 
ing than were it a world of sand, of which no man 
could build even a hut. Still, by her need of another, 
God was laying hold of her. As by the law is the 
knowledge of sin, so by love is selfishness rampantly 
roused — to be at last like death, swallowed up in vic- 
tory — the victory of the ideal self that dwells in God. 

All night she dreamed sad dreams of Ian in the em- 
brace of a lovely woman, without word or look for her. 
She woke weeping, and said to herself that it could not 
be. He could not be taken from her ! it was against 
nature! Soul, brain, and heart, claimed him hers! 
How could another possess what, in the testimony of 


388 


what’s mine’s mine. 


her whole consciousness, was hers and hers alone! 
Love asserts an innate and irreversible right of pro- 
foundest property in the person loved. It is an in- 
stinct — but how wrongly, undivinely, falsely inter- 
preted ! Hence so many tears ! Hence a law of na- 
ture, deep written in the young heart, seems often set 
utterly at nought by circumstance ! 

•But the girl in her dejection and doubt, was worth 
far more than in her content and confidence. She was 
even now the richer by the knowledge of sorrow and 
she was on the way to know that she needed help, on 
the way to hate herself, to become capable of loving. 
Life could never be the same to her, and the farther 
from the same the better ! 

The beauty came down in the morning pale and dim 
and white-lipped, like a flower that had had no water. 
Mercy was fresh and rosy, with a luminous mist of 
loveliness over her plain unfinished features. Already 
had they begun to change in the direction of beauty. 
Christina’s eyes burned ; in Mercy’s shone something 
of the light by which a soul may walk and not stum- 
ble. In the eyes of both was expectation, in the eyes 
of the one confident, in the eyes of the other anxious. 

As soon as they found themselves alone together, 
eyes sought eyes, and met in understanding. They 
had not made confidantes of each other, each guessed 
well, and was well guessed at. They did not speculate ; 
they understood. In like manner, Mercy and Alister 
understood each other, but not Christina and Ian. 
Neither of them knew the feelings of the other. 

Without a word they rose, put on their hats, left the 
house, and took the road toward the valley. About 
half-way to the root of the ridge, they came in sight 
of the ruined castle ; Mercy stopped with a little cry. 


LOVE. 


389 


“ Look ! Chrissy ! ” she said, pointing. 

On the corner next them, close by the pepper-pot 
turret, sat the two men, in what seemed to loving eyes 
a dangerous position, but to the mountaineers them- 
selves a comfortable coin of vantage. The girls 
thought both, “ They are looking out for us ! ” but 
Ian was there only because Alister was there. 

The men waved their bonnets. Christina responded 
with her handkerchief. The men disappeared from 
their perch, and were with the ladies before they 
reached the ridge. There was no embarrassment on 
either side, though a few cheeks were rosier than usual. 
To the chief, Mercy was far beyond his memory of her. 
Not her face only, but her every movement bore witness 
to a deeper pleasure, a greater freedom in life than be- 
fore. 

“ Why were you in such a dangerous place ? ” asked 
Christina. 

“We were looking out for you,” answered Alister. 
“ From there we could see you the moment you came 
out.” 

“ Why didn’t you come and meet us then ? ” 

“ Because we w r anted to watch you coming.” 

“ Spies ! — I hope, Mercy, we were behaving ourselves 
properly ! I had no idea we were watched ! ” 

“We thought you had quarrelled; neither said a 
word to the other.” 

Mercy looked up ; Christina looked down. 

“ Could you hear us at that height ? ” asked Mercy. 

“ How could we when there was not a word to hear ! ” 

“ How did you know we were silent ? ” 

“ We might have knowm by the way you walked,” 
replied Alister. “ But if you had spoken we should 
have heard, for sound travels far among the mountains ! ” 


390 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Then I think it was a shame ! ” said Christina. 
“ IIow could you tell that we might not object to your 
hearing us?” 

“ We never thought of that! ” said Alister. “I am 
very sorry. We shall certainly not be guilty again ! ” 
“ What men you are for taking every thing in down- 
right earnest ! ” cried Christina ; “ — as if we could 
have anything to say we should wish you not to hear! ” 
She put a little emphasis on the you , but not much. 
Alister heard it as if Mercy had said it, and smiled a 
pleased smile. 

“ It will be a glad day for the world,” he said, “ when 
secrecy is over, and every man may speak out the thing 
that is in him, without danger of offence ! ” 

In her turn, Christina heard the words as if spoken 
witli reference to Ian though not by him, and took 
them to hint at the difficulty of saying what was in his 
heart. She had such an idea of her superiority because 
of her father’s wealth and fancied position, that she at 
once concluded Ian dreaded rejection with scorn ; for it 
was not even as if he were the chief. However poor, 
Alister was at least the head of a family, and might set 
sir before, and baronet after his name — not that her 
father would think that much of a dignity! — but no 
younger son of whatever rank, would be good enough 
for her in her father’s eyes ! At the same time she had 
a choice as well as her father, and he should find that 
she too had a will of her own ! 

u But was it not a dangerous place to be in ?” 

“ It is a little crumbly,” confessed Ian. “ — That re- 
minds me, Alister, we must have a bout at the old walls 
before long! — Ever since Alister was ten years old,” 
he went on in explanation to Christina, “ he and I have 
been patching and pointing at the old hulk — the 


LOVE. 


391 


stranded ship of our poor fortunes. I showed you, did 
I not, the ship in our coat of arms — the galley at least, 
in which, they say, we arrived at the island ? ” 

“Yes, I remember. — But you don’t mean you do 
mason’s work as well as everything else ? ” exclaimed 
Christina. 

“ Come ; we will show you,” said the chief. 

“ What do you do it for ? ” 

The brothers exchanged glances. 

“Would you count it sufficient reason,” returned 
Ian, “ that we desired to preserve its testimony to the 
former status of our family ? ” 

A pang of pleasure shot through the heart of Christina. 
Passion is potent to twist in its favor whatever can 
possibly be so twisted. Here was an indubitable indica- 
tion of his thoughts ! He must make the most of him- 
self, set what he could against the overwhelming advan- 
tages on her side ! In the eyes of a man of the world 
like her father, an old name was nothing beside new 
money! still an old castle was always an old castle! 
and that he cared about it for her sake made it to her 
at least worth something ! Ere she could make an 
answer, Ian went on, “ But in truth,” he said, “ we have 
always had vague hope of its resurrection. The dream 
of our boyhood was to rebuild the castle. Every 
year it has grown more hopeless, and keeps receding. 
But we have come to see how little it matteVs, and 
content ourselves with keeping up, for old love’s 
sake, what is left of the ruin.” 

“ How do you get up on the walls ? ” asked Mercy. 

“ Ah, that is a secret ! ” said Ian. 

“ Do tell us,” pleaded Christina. 

“If you want very much to know — ” answered Ian, 
a little doubtfully. 


392 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“Ido, Ido!” 

“ Then I suppose we must tell you ! ” 

Yet more confirmation to the passion-prejudiced ears 
of Christina ! 

“ There is a stair,” Ian went on, “ of which no one 
but our two selves knows anything. Such stairs are 
common in old houses — far commoner than people in 
towns have a notion of. But there would not have 
been much of it left by this time, if we hadn’t taken 
care of it. We were little fellows when we began, and 
it needed much contrivance, for we were not able to 
unseat the remnants of the broken steps, and replace 
them with new ones.” 

“Do show it us,” begged Christina. 

“We will keep it,” said Alister, “for some warm twi- 
light. Morning is not for ruins. Yon mountain-side 
is calling to us. Will you come, Mercy ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! ” cried Christina : “ that will be much bet- 
ter ! Come, Mercy ! You are up to a climb, I am sure ! ” 

“ I ought to be, after such a long rest.” 

“You may have forgotten how to climb!” said 
Alister. 

“ I dreamed too much of the hills for that ! And al- 
ways the noise of London was changed into the rush 
of waters.” 

They had dropped a little behind the other pair. 

“Did you always climb your dream-hills alone?” 
said Alister. 

She answered him with just a lift of her big dark 
eyes. 

They walked slowly down the road till they came to 
Mrs. Conal’s path, passed her door unassailed, and went 

up the hill. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 


PASSION AND PATIENCE. 

I T was a glorious morning, and as they climbed, the 
lightening air made their spirits rise with their 
steps. Great masses of cloud hung beyond the edge 
of the world, and here and there towered foundation- 
less in the sky — huge tumulous heaps of white vapor 
with gray shadows. The sun was strong, and poured 
down floods of light, but his heat was deliciously tem- 
pered by the mountain atmosphere. There was no. 
wind — only an occasional movement, as if the air it- 
self were breathing — just enough to let them feel they 
moved in no vacuum, but in the heart of a gentle ocean. 

They came to the hut I have already described as 
the one chiefly inhabited by Hector of the Stags and 
Rob of the Angels. It commanded a rare vision. In 
every direction rose some cone-shaped hill. The world 
lay in colored waves before them, wild, rugged, and 
grand, with sheltering spots of beauty between, and 
the shine of lowly waters. They tapped at the door 
of the hut, but there was no response ; they lifted the 
latch — it had no lock — and found neither within. 
Alister and Mercy wandered a little higher, to the 
shadow of a great stone ; Christina went inside the 
hut and looked from its door upon the world ; Ian 
leaned against the side of it, and looked up to the sky. 
Suddenly a few great drops fell — it was hard to say 
whence. The scattered clouds had been drawing a 
393 


394 


what’s mine’s mine. 


little nearer the sun, growing whiter as they ap- 
proached him, and more had ascended from the hori- 
zon into the middle air, blue sky abounding between 
them. A swift rain, like a rain of the early summer, 
began to fall, and grew to a heavy shower. They 
were glorious drops that made that shower; for the 
sun shone, and every drop was a falling gem, shining, 
sparkling like a diamond as it fell. It was a bounteous 
rain, coming from near the zenith, and falling in 
straight lines, direct from heaven to earth. It wanted 
but sound to complete its charm, and that the bells 
of the heather gave, set ringing by the drops. The 
heaven was filled with blue windows, and the rain 
seemed to come from them rather than from the clouds. 
Into the rain rose the heads of the mountains, each 
clothed in its surplice of thin mist ; they seemed rising on 
tiptoe heavenward, in their eagerness to drink of the 
high-born comfort ; for the rain comes down, .not upon 
the mown grass only, but upon the solitary and desert 
places also, where grass will never be — “ the play- 
grounds of the young angels,” Rob called them. 

“ Do come in,” said Christina ; “ you will get quite 
wet!” 

He turned towards her. She stepped back, and he 
entered. Like one a little weary, he sat down on Hec- 
tor’s old chair. 

“ Is anything the matter? ” asked Christina, with 
genuine concern. 

She saw that he was not quite like himself, that 
there was an unusual expression on his face. He gave 
a faint apologetic smile. 

“ As I stood there,” he answered, “ a strange feeling 
came over me — a foreboding, I suppose you would 
call it.” 


PASSION AND PATIENCE. 


395 


He paused, Christina grew pale, and said, 

“ Won’t you tell me what it was? ” 

“ It was an odd kind of conviction that the next time 
I stood there, it would not be in the body. — I think I 
shall not come back.” 

“ Come back ! ” echoed Christina, fear beginning to 
sip at the cup of her heart. “ Where are you going ? ” 

“ I start for Canada next week.” 

She turned deadly white, and put out her hands, 
feeling blindly after support. Ian started to his feet. 

“We have tired you out!” he said in alarm, and 
took her by both hands to place her in the chair. 

She did not hear him. The world had grown dark 
about her, a hissing noise was in her ears, and she would 
have fallen, had he not put his arm round her. The 
moment she felt supported, she began to come to her- 
self. There was no pretence, however, no coquetry, in 
her faintness. Neither was it aught but misery and 
affection that made her lay her head on Ian’s shoulder, 
and burst into a violent fit of weeping. Unused to real 
emotion, familiar only with the poverty-stricken, false 
emotion of conquest and gratified vanity, when the real 
emotion came she did not know how to deal with it, 
and it overpowered her. 

“Oh! oh!” she cried at length between her sobs, 
“ I am ashamed of myself ! I can’t help it ! I can’t 
help it ! What will you think of me ! I have disgraced 
myself ! ” 

Ian had been far from any suspicion of the state of 
things, but he had had too much sorrowful experience 
to be able to keep his unwilling eyes closed to this new 
consternation. The cold shower seemed to flood his 
soul ; the bright drops descending with such swiftness 
of beauty, instinct with sun-life, turned into points of 


396 


what’s mine’s mine. 


icy steel that pierced his heart. But he must not heed 
himself ! he must sj^eak to her ! He must say some- 
thing through the terrible shroud that infolded them ! 

“You are as safe with me,” he faltered, “ — as safe 
as with your mother ! ” 

“I believe it! I know it,” she answered, still sob- 
bing, but looking up with an expression of genuine in- 
tegrity such as he had never seen on her face before. 
“But I am sorry!” she went on. “It is very weak, 
and very, very un — un — womanly of me! But it 
came upon me all at once ! If I had only had some 
warning! Oh, why did you not tell me before ? Why 
did you not prepare me for it ? You might have known 
what it would be to hear it so suddenly ! ” 

More and more aghast grew Ian ! What was to be 
done? What was to be said? What was left for a 
man to do, when a woman laid her soul before him ? 
Was there nothing but a lie to save her from bitterest 
humiliation? To refuse any woman was to Ian a hard 
task ; once he had found it impossible to refuse even 
where he could not give, and had let a woman take his 
soul ! Thank God, she took it Indeed ! he yielded him- 
self perfectly, and God gave him her in return ! But 
that was once, and for ever! It could not be done 
again ! 

“ I am very sorry! ” he faltered ; and the words and 
their tone sent a shiver through the heart of Christina. 

But now that she had betrayed her secret, the pent- 
up tide of her phantasy rushed to the door. She wns 
reckless. Used to everything her own way, knowing 
nothing of disappointment, a new and ill understood 
passion dominating her, she let everything go and the 
torrent sweep her with it. Passion, like a lovely wild 
beast had mastered her, and she never thought of try- 


PASSION AND PATIENCE. 


397 


ing to tame it. It was herself ! there was not enough 
of her outside the passion to stand up against it ! She 
began to see the filmy eyed Despair, and had neither 
experience to deal with herself, nor reticence enough 
to keep silence. 

“ If you speak to me like that,” she cried, “ my heart 
will break ! — Must you go away ? ” 

“ Dear Miss Palmer, ” faltered Ian. 

“Oh!” she ejaculated, with a world of bitterness in 
the protest. 

“ — do let us be calm,” continued Ian. “We shall 
not come to anything if we lose ourselves this way ! ” 

The we and the us gave her a little hope. 

“ How can I be calm ! ” she cried. “ I am not cold- 
hearted like you! — You are going away, and I shall 
never see you again to all eternity ! ” 

She burst out weeping afresh. 

“Do love me a little before you go,” she sobbed. 
“ You gave me my life once, but that does not make it 
right to take it from me again ! It only gives you a 
right to its best ! ” 

She stopped. 

“ God knows,” said Ian, “ if my life could serve you, 
I should count it a small thing to yield! — But this is 
idle talk! A man must not pretend anything! We 
must not be untrue ! ” 

She fancied he did not believe in her. 

“ I know ! I know ! you may well distrust me ! ” she 
returned. “ I have often behaved abominably to you ! 
But indeed I am true now ! I dare not tell you a lie. 
To you I must speak the truth, for I love you with my 
whole soul.” 

Ian stood dumb. His look of consternation and sad- 
ness brought her to herself a little. 


398 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ What have I done ! ” she cried, and drawing back 
a pace, stood looking at him, and trembling. “ I am 
disgraced for ever ! I have told a man I love him, and 
he leaves me to the shame of it ! He will not save me 
from it! he will not say one word to take it away! 
Where is your generosity, Ian?” 

“ I must be true ! ” said Ian, speaking as if to him- 
self, and in a voice altogether unlike his own. 

“You will not love me! You hate me! You de- 
spise me ! But I will not live rejected ! He brushes 
me like a feather from his coat ! ” 

“Hear me,” said Ian, trying to recover himself. 

“ Do not think me insensible ” 

“ Oh, yes ! I know ! ” cried Christina yet more bit- 
terly ; “ — insensible to the honor I do you , and all that 
world of nothing ! Pray use your victory ! Lord it 
over me ! I am the weed under your foot ! I beg you 
will not spare me ! Speak out what you think of me ! ” 
Ian took her hand. It trembled as if she would pull 
it away, and her eyes flashed an angry fire. She looked 
more nearly beautiful than ever he had seen her ! His 
heart was like to break. He drew her to the chair, and 
taking a stool, sat down beside her. Then, with a 
voice that gathered strength as he proceeded, he said : 

“ Let me speak to you, Christina Palmer, as in the 
presence of him who made us! To pretend I loved 
you would be easier than to bear the pain of giving 
you such pain. Were I selfish enough, I could take 
much delight in your love ; but I scorn the unmanliness 
of accepting gold and returning silver : my love is not 
mine to give.” 

It was some relief to her proud heart to imagine he 
would have loved her had he been free. But she did 
not speak. 


PASSION AND PATIENCE. 


399 


“ If I thought,” pursued Ian, “ that I had, by any 
behavior of mine, been to blame for this, — ” There he 
stopped, lest he should seem to lay blame on her. — “I 
think,” he resumed, “ I could help you if you would 
listen to me. Were I in like trouble with you, I would 
go into my room, and shut the door, and tell my Father 
in heaven everything about it. Ah, Christina ! if you 
knew him you would not break your heart that a man 
did not love you just as you loved him.” 

Had not her misery been so great, had she not also 
done the thing that humbled her before herself, Chris- 
tina would have been indignant witli the man who re- 
fused her love and dared speak to her of religion ; but 
she was now too broken for resentment. 

The diamond rain was falling, the sun was shining in 
his vaporous strength, and the great dome of heaven 
stood fathomless above the pair ; but to Christina the 
world was black and blank as the gloomy hut in which 
they sat. When first her love blossomed she saw the 
world open ; she looked into its heart ; she saw it alive 
— saw it burning with that which made the bush alive 
in the desert of Horeb — the presence of the living 
God ; now, the vision was over, the desert was dull and 
dry, the bush burned no more, the glowing lava had 
cooled to unsightly stone! There was no God, nor 
any man more ! Time had closed and swept the world 
into the limbo of vanity! For a time she sat with- 
out thought, as it were in a mental sleep. She opened 
her eyes, and the blank of creation stared into, the very 
heart of her. The emptiness and loneliness overpow- 
ered her. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she 
slid to her knees at Ian’s feet, crying, 

“ Save me, save me, Ian ! I shall go mad ! Pardon 
me ! Help me ! ” 


400 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ All a man may be to his sister I am ready to be to 
you. I will write to you from Canada ; you can answer 
me or not as you please. My heart cries out to me to 
take you in my arms and comfort you, but I must not ; 
it would not comfort you.” 

“You do not despise me, then ? — Oh, thank you ! ” 
“ Despise you ! — no more than my dead sister ! I 
would cherish you as I would her were she in like sor- 
row. I would die to save you this grief — except 
indeed that I hope much from it.” 

“Forget all about me,” said Christina. 

“ I will not forget you. It is impossible, nor would 
I if I could.” 

“ You forgive me then, and will not think ill of me?” 
“ How forgive trust ? Is that an offence ? ” 

“ I have lost your good opinion ! How could I de- 
grade myself so ! ” 

“ On the contrary, you are fast gaining my good 
opinion. You have begun to be a true woman ! ” 

“ What if it should be only for ” 

“ Whatever it may have been for, now you have 
tasted truth you will not turn back ! ” 

“How I know you do not care for me, I fear I shall 
soon sink back into my old self ! ” 

“I do care for you, Christina, and you will not 
sink back into your old self. God means you to be a 
strong, good woman — able, with the help lie will give 
you, to bear grief in a great-hearted fashion. Believe 
me, you and I may come nearer each other in the ages 
before us by being both true, than is possible in any 
other way whatever.” 

“ I am miserable at the thought of what you must 
think of me ! Everybody would say I had done a 
shameless thing in confessing my love ! ” 


PASSION AND PATIENCE. 


401 


“ I am not in the way of thinking as everybody 
thinks. There is little justice, and less sympathy, to 
be had from everybody. I would think and judge and 
feel as the one, my Master. Be sure you are safe with 
me.” 

“ You will not tell anybody ? ” 

“ You must trust me.” 

“ I beg your pardon ! I have offended you ! ” 

“ Not in the least. But I will bind myself by no prom- 
ises. I am bound already to be as careful over you as 
if you were the daughter of my father and mother. 
Your confession, instead of putting you in my power, 
makes me your servant.” 

By this time Christina was calm. There was a great 
load on her heart, but somehow she was aware of the 
possibility of carrying it. She looked up gratefully in 
Ian’s face, already imagining to feel for him a reverence 
which made it easier to forego the right to put her arms 
round him. And therewith awoke in her the first move- 
ment of divine relationship — rose the first heave of the 
child-heart towards the source of its being. It appeared 
in the form of resistance. Complaint against God is far 
nearer to God than indifference about him. 

“Ian Macruadh,” said Christina solemnly, and she 
looked him in the eyes as she said it, “ how can you 
believe there is a God ? If there were, would he allow 
such a dreadful thing to befall one of his creatures? 
How am I to blame ? I could not help it ! ” 

“ I see in it his truth and goodness towards his child. 
And he will let you see it. The thing is between him 
and you.” 

“ It will be hard to convince me it is either good or 
loving to make anyone suffer like this ! ” protested 
Christina, her hand unconsciously pressed on her heart ; 


402 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ and all the disgrace of it too ! ” she added bitterly. 

“I will not allow there is any disgrace,” returned 
Ian. u But I will not try to convince you of anything 
about God. I cannot. You must know him. I only 
say I believe in him with all my heart. You must ask 
him to explain himself to you, and not take it for 
granted, because he has done what you do not like, 
that he has done you a wrong. Whether you see him 
or not, he will do you justice ; but he cannot ex])lain 
himself except you seek him.” 

“ I think I understand. Believe me, I am willing to 
understand.” 

A few long seconds of silence followed. Christina 
came a little nearer. She was still on her knees. 

“ Will you kiss me once,” she said, “ as you would a 
little child ! ” 

“ In the name of God ! ” answered Ian, and stooping 
kissed her gently and tenderly. 

“ Thank you ! ” she <said, and “ — Now the rain is 
over, let us join Mercy and the chief. I hope they 
have not got very wet ! ” 

“ Alister will have taken care of that. There is 
plenty of shelter about here.” 

They left the cottage, drew the door close, and 
through the heather, sparkling with a thousand rain- 
drops, the sun shining hotter than ever through the 
rain-mist, went up the hill. 

They found the other pair sheltered by the great 
stone, which was not only a shadow from the heat, but 
sloped sufficiently to be a cover from the rain. They 
did not know it had ceased ; perhaps they did not know 
it had rained. 

On a fine morning of the following week, the emi- 
grants began the first stage of their long journey, the 


PASSION AND PATIENCE. 


403 


women in two carts, with their small impedimenta , the 
men walking — Ian with them, a stout stick in his hand. 
They were to sail from Greenock. 

Ian and Christina met several times before he left, 
but never alone. No conference of any kind, not even 
of eyes, had been sought by Christina, and Ian had re- 
solved to say nothing more until he reached Canada. 
Thence he would write things which pen and ink would 
say better and carry nearer home than could speech ; 
and by that time too the first bitterness of her pain 
would have dulled, and left her mind more capable of 
receiving them. He was greatly pleased with the gen- 
tle calm of her behavior. No one else could have seen 
any difference toward himself : he read in her carriage 
that of a child who had made a mistake, and was hum- 
bled, not vexed. Her mother noted that her cheek was 
pale, and that she seemed thoughtful, but farther she did 
not penetrate. To Ian it was plain that she had set hep 
self to be reasonable. 


CHAPTER XL. 


LOVE GLOOMING, 


AN, the light of his mother’s eyes was gone, and she 



JL felt forsaken. Alister was too much occupied with 
Mercy to feel his departure as on former occasions, yet 
he missed him every hour of the day. Mercy and he 
met, but not for some time in open company, as Chris- 
tina refused to go near the cottage. Things were ripe- 
ning to a change. 

Alister’s occupation with Mercy, however, was far 
from absorption: the moment Ian was gone, he increased 
his attention to his mother, feeling she had but him. 
But his mother was not quite the same to him now. 
At times she was even more tender ; at other times she 
seemed to hold him away from her, as one with whom 
she was not in sympathy. The fear awoke in him that 
she might so speak to some one of the Palmers as to 
raise an insuperable barrier between the families ; and 
this fear made him resolve to come at once to an under- 
standing with Mercy. The resulting difficulties might 
be great ; he felt keenly the possible alternative of his 
loss of Mercy, or Mercy’s loss of her family ; but the 
fact that he loved her gave him a right to tell her so, 
and made it his duty to lay before her the probability of 
an obstacle. That his mother did not like the alliance 
had to be braved, for a man must leave father and 
mother and cleave to his wife — a saying commonly by 
male presumption inverted. Mercy’s love he believed 


404 


LOVE GLOOMING. 


405 


such that she would without a thought leave the luxury 
of her father’s house for the mere plenty of his. That 
it would not be to descend but to rise in the true social 
scale he would leave her to discover. Had he known 
what Mr. Palmer was, and how his money had been 
made, he would neither have sought nor accepted his ac- 
quaintance, and it would no more have been possible to 
fall in love with one of his family than to covet one of 
his fine horses. But that which might, could, would, or 
should have been, affected in no way that which was. 
He had entered in ignorance, by the will of God, into 
certain relations with “ the young woman,” as his 
mother called her, and those relations had to be followed 
to their natural and righteous end. 

Talking together over possibilities, Mr. Peregrine 
Palmer had agreed with his wife that, Mercy being so 
far from a beauty, it might not be such a bad match, 
would not at least be one to be ashamed of, if she did 
marry the impoverished chief of a highland clan, with 
a baronetcy in his pocket. Having bought the land 
so cheap, he could afford to let a part, perhaps even the 
whole of it, go back with his daughter, thus restoring 
to its former position an ancient and honorable family. 
The husband of his younger daughter would then be 
head of one of the very few highland families in pos- 
session of their ancestral acres — a distinction he would 
owe to Peregrine Palmer ! It was a pleasant thought 
to the kindly, consequential, common little man. Mrs. 
Palmer, therefore, when the chief called upon her, 
received him with more than her previous cordiality. 

His mother would have been glad to see him return 
from his call somewhat dejected : he entered so radiant 
and handsome, that her heart sank within her. Was 
she actually on the point of being allied through the 


406 


what’s mine’s mine. 


child of her bosom to a distiller and brewer — a man 
who had grown rich on the ruin of thousands of his 
fellow-countrymen? To what depths might not the 
most ancient family sink ! For any poverty, she said 
to herself, she was prepared — but how was she to en- 
dure disgrace! Alas for the clan, whose history was 
about to cease — smothered in the defiling garment of 
ill-gotten wealth ! Miserable, humiliating close to an- 
cient story ! She had no doubt as to her son’s intentions 
although he had said nothing : she knew that his refusal 
of dower would be his plea in justification ; but would 
that deliver them from the degrading approval of the 
world? How many, if they ever heard of it, would 
believe that the poor, high-souled Macruadh declined 
to receive a single hundred from his father-in-law’s 
affluence ! that he took his daughter poor as she was 
born — his one stipulation that she should be clean 
from her father’s mud ! For one to whom there 
would even.be a chance of stating the truth of the 
matter, a hundred would say — “ That’s your plan ! 
the only salvation for your shattered houses ! — 
paint them up well with the bird-lime of the brewer, 
the quack, or the money-lender, and they’ll last till 
doom’sday ! ” 

Thus bitterly spoke the mother. She brooded and 
scorned, raged inwardly, and took to herself dishonor, 
until plainly she was wasting. The chief’s heart was 
troubled. Could it be that she doubted his strength to 
resist temptation ? He must make haste and have the 
whole thing settled ! — and first of all speak definitely 
to Mercy on the matter. 

He had appointed to meet her the same evening, and 
long before the hour went to watch for her appearing. 
He climbed the hill, and lay down in the heather 


LOVE GLOOMING. 


407 


where he could see the door of the New House, and 
Mercy the moment she should come out of it. He lay 
there till the sun was down, and the stars began to ap- 
pear. At length — and even then it was many min- 
utes to the time — he saw the door open, and Mercy 
walk slowly to the gate. He rose and went down the 
hill. She saw him, watched him descending, and the 
moment he reached the road, went to meet him. They 
walked slowly down the road, without a word spoken, 
until they felt themselves alone. 

“ You look so lovely ! ” said the chief. 

“ In the twilight, I suppose ! ” said Mercy. 

“ Perhaps ; you are a creature of the twilight, of the 
night rather, with your great black eyes ! ” 

“I don’t like you to speak to me so! You never 
did before ! You know I am not lovely! I am very 
plain ! ” 

She was evidently not pleased. 

“ What have I done to vex you, Mercy ? ” he re- 
joined. “ Why should you mind my saying what is 
true ? ” 

She bit her lip, and could hardly speak to answer 
him. Often in London she had been morally sickened 
by the false rubbish talked to her sister, and had boasted 
to herself that the chief had never paid her a compli- 
ment : now he had done it ! 

She took her hand from his arm. 

“ I think I will go home ! ” she said. 

Alister stopped and turned to her. The last gleam 
of the west was reflected from her eyes, and all the 
sadness of the fading light seemed gathered into them. 

“ My child ! ” he said, all that was fatherly in the 
chief rising at the sight, “ who has been making you 
unhappy ? ” 


408 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ You,” she answered, looking him in the face. 

“ How ? I do not understand ! ” he returned, gazing 
at her bewildered. 

“ You have just paid me a compliment — a thing 
you never did before — a thing I never heard before 
from any but a fool ! How could you say I was beau- 
tiful! You know I am not beautiful. It breaks my 
heart to think you could say what you don’t believe ! ” 

“ Mercy ! ” said the chief, “ if I said you were beau- 
tiful, and to my eyes you were not, it would yet be 
true ; for to my heart, which sees deeper than my eyes, 
you are more beautiful than any other ever was or ever 
will be. I know you are not beautiful in the world’s 
meaning, but you are very lovely, and it was lovely I 
said you were ! ” 

“Lovely because you love me! Is that what you 
meant ? ” 

“Yes, that and more. Your eyes are beautiful, and 
your hair is beautiful, and your expression is lovely. 
But I am not flattering you — I am not even paying 
you compliments, for those things are not yours. God 
made them, and has given them to me ! ” 

She put her hand in his arm again, and there was 
no more love-making. 

“ But Mercy,” said the chief, when they had walked 
some distance without speaking, “ do you think you 
could live here always and never see London again ? ” 

“ I would not care if London were scratched out.” 

“ Could you be content to be a farmer’s wife ? ” 

“ If he was a very good farmer,” she answered. 

“ Am I a good enough farmer, then, to serve your 
turn ? ” 

“ Good enough if I were ten times better. Do you 
really mean it, Macraudh ? ” 


LOVE GLOOMING. 


409 


“ With all my heart. Only there is one thing I am 
very anxious about.” 

“ What is that ? ” 

“ How your father will take my condition.” 

“ He will allow, I think, that it is good enough for 
me — and more than I deserve.” 

“ That is not what I mean ; it is — that I have a 
certain condition to make.” 

“ Else you won’t marry me ? — that seems strange ! 
Of course I will do anything you would wish me to do ! 
— A condition /” she repeated ponderingly, with just 
a little dissatisfaction in the tone. 

Alister wondered she was not angry. But she trusted 
him too well to take offence readily. 

“ Y es,” re j oined Alister, “ a condition ! Terms belong 
naturally to the giver, not the petitioner. I hope with 
all my heart it will not offend him. It will not offend 
you, I think.” 

“ Let me hear your condition,” said Mercy, looking 
at him curiously, her honest eyes shining in the faint 
light. 

“ I want him to let me take you just as you are, 
without having to take a shilling of his money to spoil 
the gift. I want you in and for yourself.” 

“ I dare not think you one who would rather not be 
obliged to his wife for anything ! ” said Mercy : “ that 
cannot be it ! ” 

She spoke with just a shade of displeasure. He did 
not answer. He was in great dread of hurting her, and 
his plain reason could not fail to hurt her. 

“ Well,” she resumed, “ there are fathers, I dare say, 
who would not count that a hard condition ! ” 

“ Of course your father will not like the idea of your 
marrying so poor a man ! ” 


410 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ If he should insist on your having something with 
me, you will not refuse — will you ? Why should you 
mind it?” 

Alister was silent ; the thing had already begun to grow 
dreadful ! How could he tell her his reasons ! Was it 
necessary to tell her ? If he had to explain, it must be 
to her father, not to her? How until absolutely com- 
pelled, reveal the horrible fact that her father was 
despised by her lover ! She might believe it her part 
to refuse such love ! He trembled lest Mercy should 
urge him. But she, thinking she had been very bold 
already, also held her peace. 

They tried to talk about other things, but with like 
success, and when they parted, it was with a sense on 
both sides that something had got between them. The 
night through Mercy hardly slept for trying to discover 
what his aversion to her dowry might mean. No 
princedom was worth contrasting with poverty and her 
farmer-chief, but why should not his love be able to 
carry her few thousands ? It was impossible his great 
soul should grudge his wife’s superiority in the one poor 
trifle of money ! was not the whole family superior to 
money ! Had she, alas ! been too confident in their 
greatness? Must she be brought to confess that their 
grand ways had their little heart of pride ? Did they 
not regard themselves as the ancient aristocracy of the 
country ! Yes, it must be the chief despised the origin 
of her father’s riches ! 

But, although so far in the direction of the fact, she had 
no suspicion of anything more than landed pride look- 
ing down upon manufacture and trade : she suspected 
no moral root of even a share in the chief’s difficulty. 
Naturally, she was offended. How differently Chris- 
tina would have met the least hint of a condition ! she 


LOVE GLOOMING. 


411 


thought. She had been too ready to show and confess 
her love ! Had she stood off a little, she might have 
escaped this humiliation ? But would that have been 
honest? Must she not first of all be true? Was the 
chief, whatever his pride, capable of being ungenerous ? 
Questions like these kept coming and going throughout 
the night. Hither and thither went her thoughts, re- 
fusing to be controlled. The morning came, the sun rose, 
and she could not find rest. She had come to see how 
ideally delightful it was just to wait God’s will of love, 
yet, in this her first trouble, she actually forgot to think 
of God, never asked him to look after the thing for 
her, never said, “ Thy will be done ! ” and when at 
length weariness overpowered her, fell asleep like a 
heathen, without a word from her heart to the heart. 

Alister missed Ian sorely. He prayed to God, but 
was too troubled to feel him near. Trouble imagined 
may seem easy to meet ; trouble actual is quite another 
thing ! His mother, perhaps, was to have her desire ; 
perhaps Mercy would not marry a man who disap- 
proved her family ! Between them already was what 
could not be talked about ! he could not set free his 
heart to her ! 

When Mercy woke, the old love was awake also : let 
Alister’s reason be what it might, it was not for her to 
resent it ! The life he led was so much grander than a 
life spent in making money, that he must feel himself 
superior ! Throned in the hearts, and influencing the 
characters of men, was he not in ,a far nobler position 
than money could give him ? From her night of doubt 
and bitterness Mercy issued more loving and humble. 
What should she be now, she said to herself, if Alister 
had not taught her ? He had been good to her as never 
father or brother ! She would trust him ! She would 


412 


what’s mine’s mine. 


believe him right ! Had he hurt her pride ? It was well 
her pride should be hurt ! Her mind was at rest. 

But Alister must continue in pain and dread until he 
had spoken to her father. Knowing then the worst, he 
might use argument with Mercy ; the moment for that 
was not yet come ! It he consented that his daughter 
should leave him undowered, an understanding with 
Mercy might be postponed. When the honor of her 
husband was -more to her than the false credit of her 
family, when she had had time to understand principles 
which, born and brought up as she had been, she might 
not yet be able to see into, then it would be time to 
explain. One with him, she would see things as he saw 
them ! Till her father came, he would avoid the sub- 
ject ! 

All the morning he was busy in the cornyard — with 
his hands in preparing new stances for ricks, with his 
heart in trying to content himself beforehand with 
whatever fate the Lord might intend for him. As yet 
he was more of a Christian philosopher than a philo- 
sophical Christian. The thing most disappointing to 
him he would treat as the will of God for him, and try 
to make up his mind to it, persuading himself it was 
the right and best thing — as if he knew it the will of 
God. He was thus working in the region of supposi- 
tion, and not of revealed duty ; in his own imagination, 
and not in the will of God. If this should not prove 
the will of God concerning him, then he was spending 
his strength for nought. There is something in the 
very presence and actuality of a thing to make one able 
to bear it ; but a man may weaken himself for bearing 
what God intends him to bear, by trying to bear what 
God does not intend him to bear. The chief was fore- 
stalling the morrow like an unbeliever — not without 


LOYE GLOOMING. 


413 


some moral advantage, I dare say, but with spiritual 
loss. We have no right to school ourselves to an 
imaginary duty. When we do not know, then what 
he lays upon us is not to know , and to be content not 
to know. The philosopher is he who lives in the thought 
of things, the Christian is he who lives in the things 
themselves. The philosopher occupies himself with 
God’s decree, the Christian with God’s will ; the phi- 
losopher with what God may intend, the Christian with 
what God wants him to do. 

The laird looked up and there were the young ladies ! 
it was the first time Christina had come nigh the cot- 
tage since Ian’s departure. 

“ Can you tell me, Macruadh,” she said, “ what makes 
Mrs. Conal so spiteful always ? when we bade her good 
morning a few minutes ago, she overwhelmed us with 
a torrent of abuse ! ” * 

“ How did you know it was abuse ? ” 

“We understand enough of Gaelic to know it was 
not exactly blessing us she was. It is not necessary to 
know cat-language to distinguish between purring and 
spitting ! What harm have we done ? Her voice was 
fierce ! and her eyes like two live peats flaming at us ! 
Do speak to her.” 

“ It would be of no use ! ” 

“ Where’s the good of being chief then ? I don’t ask 
you to make the old woman civil, but I think you might 
keep her from insulting your friends ! I begin to think 
your chiefdom a sham ! ” 

“I doubt indeed if it reaches to the tongues of the 
c l an j — But let us go and tell my mother : she may be 
able to do something with her ! ” 

Christina went into the cottage ; the chief drew Mercy 
back. 


414 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ What do you think the first duty of married peo- 
ple, Mercy — to each other, I mean?” he said. 

“ To be always what they look,” answered Mercy. 

“Yes; but I mean actively: what is it their first 
duty to do towards each other ? ” 

“ I can’t answer that without thinking.” 

“ Is it not each to help the other to do the will of 
God?” 

“ I would say yes if I were sure I really meant it.” 

“You will mean it one day.” 

“ Are you sure God will teach me ? ” 

“ I think he cares more to do that than anything 
else.” 

“ More than to save us ? ” 

“ What is saving but taking us out of the dark into 
the light ? There is no salvation but to know God and 
grow like him.” 


CHAPTER XLI. 


A GENEROUS DOWRY, 



IHE only hope of the chiefs mother was in what 


the girl’s father might say to her son’s pro- 
posal. Would not his pride revolt against giving his 
daughter to a man who would not receive his blessing 
in money? 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer arrived, and the next day the 
chief called upon him. 

Not unprepared for the proposal of the chief, Mercy’s 
father had nothing to urge against it. Her suitor’s 
name was almost an historical one, for it stood high in 
the home-annals of Scotland ; and the new laird, who 
had always a vague sense of injury in the lack of an 
illustrious pedigree of his own to send forward, was not 
unwilling that a man more justly treated than himself 
should supply the solatium to his daughter’s children. 
He received the Macruadh, therefore, if a little pom- 
pously indeed, yet with kindness ; and the moment they 
were seated Alister laid his request before him. 

“ Mr. Palmer, ” he said, “ I come to ask the hand of 
your daughter Mercy. I have not much beyond my- 
self to offer her, but I can tell you precisely what there 
is.” 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer sat for a moment looking im- 
portant : he seemed to see much to ponder in the pro- 
posal. 

“ Well, Macruadh,” he said at length, hesitating with 


415 


416 


what’s mine’s mine. 


hum and with haw, “ the thing is — well, to speak the 
truth, you take me a good deal by surprise ! I do not 
know how the thing may appear to Mrs. Palmer ; and 
then the girl herself, you will allow, ought, in a free 
country, to have a word in the matter ! — we give our 
girls absolute liberty ; their own hearts must guide 
them — that is, where there is no serious exception to 
be taken. Honestly, it is not the kind of match we 
should have chosen ! It is not as if things were with 
you now as once, when the land was all your own, and 
— and — you — pardon me, I am a father — did not 
have to work with your own hands ! ” 

Had he been there on any other errand the chief 
would have stated his opinion that it was degrading to 
a man to draw income from anything he would count it 
degrading to put his own hand to; but there was so 
much he might be compelled to say to the displeasure 
of Mr. Palmer while asking of him the greatest gift he 
had to bestow, that he would say nothing unpalatable 
which he was not compelled to say. 

“ My ancestors,” he answered, willing to give the ob- 
jection pleasant turn, “ would certainly have preferred 
helping themselves to the produce of lowland fields ! 
My great-great-grandfather, scorning to ask any man 
for his daughter, carried her off without a word ! ” 

“ I am glad the peculiarity has not shown itself he- 
reditary,” said Mr. Palmer laughing. 

“ But if I have little to offer, I expect nothing with 
her,” said the chief abruptly. “ I want only herself ! ” 
“ A very loverly way of speaking ! but it is needless 
to say no daughter of mine shall leave me without a 
certainty, one way or the other, of suitable maintenance. 
You know the old proverb, Macruadh, — ‘ When pov- 
erty comes in at the door,’ ? ” 


A GENEROUS DOWRY. 


417 


“ There is hardly a question of poverty in the sense 
the proverb intends ! ” answered the chief smiling. 

w Of course ! of course ! At the same time you cannot 
keep the wolf too far from the door. I would not for 
my part care to say I had given my daughter to a poor 
farmer in the north. Two men, it is, I believe, you em- 
ploy, Macruadh ? ” 

The chief answered with a nod. 

“ I have other daughters to settle — not to mention 
my sons,” pursued the great little man ; “ — but — but 
I will find a time to talk the matter over with Mrs. 
Palmer, and see what I can do for you. Meanwhile 
you may reckon you have a friend at court ; all I have 
seen makes me judge well of you. Where we do not 
think alike, I can yet say for you that your faults lean 
to virtue’s side, and are such as my daughter at least 
will be no loser by. Good morning, Macruadh.” 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer rose ; and the chief, perplexed 
and indignant, but anxious not to prejudice his very 
doubtful cause, rose also. 

“ You scarcely understand me, Mr. Palmer,” he said. 
v On the possibility of being honored with your 
daughter’s hand, you must allow me to say distinctly 
beforehand, that I must decline receiving anything 
with her. When will you allow me to wait upon you 
again ? ” 

“ I will write. Good morning.” 

The interview was certainly not much to the assuage- 
ment of the chief’s anxiety. He went home with the 
feeling that he had submitted to be patronized, almost 
insulted by a paltyy fellow whose consequence rested 
on his ill-made money — a man who owed everything 
to a false and degrading appetite in his neighbors! 
Nothing could have made him put up with him but the 


418 


what’s mine’s mine. 


love of Mercy, his dove in a crow’s nest ! But it would 
be all in vain, for he could not lie ! Truth, indeed, if 
not less of a virtue, was less of a heroism in the chief 
than in most men, for he could not lie. Had he been 
tempted to try, he would have reddened, stammered, 
broken down, with the full shame, and none of the suc- 
cess of a falsehood. 

For a week, he heard nothing : there seemed small 
anxiety to welcome him into the Palmer family ! Then 
came a letter. It implied, almost said that some diffi- 
culty had been felt as to his reception by every member 
of the family — which the chief must himself see to 
have been only natural ! But while money was of no 
consequence to Mr. Palmer, it was of the greatest con- 
sequence that his daughter should seem to make a good 
match ; therefore, as only in position was the alliance 
objectionable, he had concluded to set that right for 
him, and in giving him his daughter, to restore to its 
former dignity the chief’s family, by making over to the 
chief the Clanruadh property now in his possession by 
purchase. While he thus did his duty by his daughter, 
he hoped the Macruadh would accept the arrangement 
as a mark of esteem for himself. Two conditions only 
he would make — the first, that, as long as he lived, the 
shooting should be Mr. Palmer’s, to use or to let, and 
should extend over the whole of the estate ; the second, 
that the chief should assume the baronetcy which be- 
longed to him. 

My reader will regard it as no ungenerous proposition, 
notwithstanding that much the greater part of the 
money-value of the gift lay in the shpoting. As Alister 
took leave of his mother for the night, he gave her the 
letter. 

She took it, read it slowly, laughed angrily, smiled 


A GENEROUS DOWRY. 


419 


scornfully, wept bitterly, crushed it in her hand, and 
walked up to her room with her head high. All the 
time she was preparing for bed, she was talking in her 
spirit with her husband. When she lay down she 
became a mere prey to her own thoughts, and was 
pulled, and torn, and hurt by them for hours ere she 
set herself to rule them. For the first time in her life 
she distrusted her son. She did not know what he 
would do ! The temptation would surely be too strong 
for him ! Two good things were set over against one 
evil thing — an evil thing, however, with which nobody 
would associate blame, an evil thing which would raise 
him high in the respect of everyone whose respect was 
not worth having! — the woman he loved and the land 
of his ancestors on the one side, and only the money 
that bought the land for him on the other ! — would he 
hold out ? He must take the three together, or have 
none of them ! Her fear for him grew and possessed 
her. She grew cold as death. Why did he give her 
the letter, and go without saying a word ? She knew 
well the arguments he would adduce ! Henceforward 
and forever there would be a gulf between them ! The 
poor religion he had would never serve to keep him 
straight ! What was it but a compromise with pride 
and self-sufficiency ! It could bear no such strain ! He 
acknowledged God, but not God reconciled in Christ, 
only God such as unregenerate man would have him ! 
And when Ian came home, he would be sure to side 
with Alister ! There was but one excuse for the poor 
boy — and that a miserable one : the blindness of love ! 
Yes, there was more excuse than that ; to be lord of the 
old lands, with the old clan growing and gathering again 
about its chief! — it was a temptation fit to ruin an 
archangel ! What could he not do then for his people ! 


420 


what’s mine’s mine. 


What could he not do for her ; for the land ! And she 
might have her Ian always at home with her ! God 
forbid she should buy even such bliss at such a cost ! 
She was only thinking, she said to herself, how, if the 
thing had to be, she would make the best of it : she 
was bound as a mother to do that ! 

But the edge of the wedge was in. She said to her- 
self afterwards, that the enemy of her soul must have 
been lying in wait for her that night; she almost 
believed in some bodily presence of him in her room : 
how otherwise could she account for her fall ! he must 
have been permitted to tempt her, because, in con- 
demning evil, she had given way to contempt and 
worldly pride. Her thoughts unchecked flowed for- 
ward. They lingered brooding for a time on the joys 
that might be hers — the joys of the mother of a chief 
over territory as well as hearts. Then they stole round, 
and began to flow the other way. Ere the thing had 
come she began to make the best of it for the sake of 
her son and the bond between them ; then she began 
to excuse it for the sake of the clan ; and now she 
began to justify it a little for the sake of the world! 
Everything that could favor the acceptance of the 
offer came up clear before her. The land was the 
same as it always had been ! it had never been in the 
distillery ! it had never been in the brew-house ! It was 
clean, whoever had transacted concerning it, in whatever 
hands it had been ! A good cow was a good cow, had 
she been twenty times reaved ! For Mr. Palmer to 
give and Alister to take the land back, would be some 
amends to the nation, grievously injured in the money 
of its purchase ! The deed would restore to the redeem- 
ing and uplifting influence of her son many who were 
fast perishing from poverty and whiskey ; for, their 


A GENEROUS DOWRY. 


421 


house and crofts once more in the power of their chief, 
he would again be their landlord as well ! It would be 
a pure exercise of the law of compensation ! Hundreds 
who had gone abroad would return to replenish the old 
glens with the true national wealth — with men and 
women, and children growing to be men and women, 
for the hour of their country’s need ! These were the 
true, the golden crops ! The glorious time she had 
herself seen would return, when Strathruadh could 
alone send out a regiment of the soldiers that may be 
defeated, but will not live to know it. The dream of 
her boys would come true ! they would rebuild the old 
castle, and make it a landmark in the history of the 
highlands ! 

But while she stood elate upon this high-soaring peak 
of the dark mountains of ambition, sudden before her 
mind’s eye rose the face of her husband, sudden his 
voice was in her ear ; he seemed to stand above her in 
the pulpit, reading from the prophet Isaiah — the four 
Woes that begin four contiguous chapters: — “Woe 
to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, 
whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on 
the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome 
with wine ! ” — “ Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where 
David dwelt ! Add ye year to year ; let them kill sac- 
rifices ; yet I will distress Ariel.” — “Woe to the 
rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel, 
but not of me ; and that cover with a covering, but not 
of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin ! ” — “Woe to 
them that go down to Egypt for help ; and stay on 
horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many ; 
and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but 
they look not unto the holy one of Israel, neither seek 
the Lord ! ” Then followed the words opening the 


422 


what’s mine’s mine. 


next chapter : — “ Behold a king shall reign in right- 
eousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a 
man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a 
covert from the tempest.” All this, in solemn order, 
one woe after the othei-, she heard in the very voice of 
her husband ; in awful spiritual procession, they passed 
before her listening mind ! She grew cold as the dead, 
and shuddered and shivered. She looked over the edge 
into the heart of a black gulf, into which she had been 
on the point of casting herself — say rather, down whose 
side, searching for an easy descent, she had already 
slid a long way, when the voice from above recalled 
her ! She covered her face with her hands and wept — 
ashamed before God, ashamed before her husband. It 
was a shame unutterable that the thing should even 
have looked tempting ! She cried for forgiveness, rose, 
and sought Alister’s room. 

Seldom since he was a man had she visited her 
elder son in his chamber. She cherished for him, as 
chief, something of the reverence , of the clan. The 
same familiarity had never existed between them as 
between her and Ian. Now she was going to wake him, 
and hold a solemn talk with him. Not a moment 
longer should he stand leaning over the gulf into which 
she had herself well nigh fallen ! 

She found him awake, and troubled, though not with 
an eternal trouble such as hers. 

“ I thought I should find you asleep, Alister ! ” she 
said. 

“ It was not very likely, mother ! ” he answered gen- 
tly. 

“You too have been tried with terrible thoughts ?” 

© 

“ I have been tried, but hardly with terrible thoughts : 

I know that Mercy loves me ! ” 


A GENEROUS DOWRY. 


423 


“ Ah, my son, my dear son ! love itself is the terri- 
ble thing! It has drawn many a man from the way 
of peace ! ” 

“ Did it draw you and my father from the way of 
peace ? ” asked Alister. 

“ Not for a moment ! ” she answered. “ It made our 
steps firmer in the way.” 

“ Then why should you fear it will draw me from 
it? I hope I have never made you think I was not 
following my father and you ? ” 

“Who knows what either of us might have done, 
with such a temptation as yours ! ” 

“ Either you say, mother, that my father was not so 
good as I think him, or that he did what he did in his 
own strength ! ” 

“ 4 Let him that thinketh ’ — you know the rest ! ” re- 
joined the mother. 

“I don’t think I am tempted to anything just now.” 

“There it is, you see! — the temptation so subtle 
that you do not suspect its character ! ” 

“ I am confident my father would have done just as 
I mean to do ! ” 

“ What do you mean to do ? ” 

“ Is it my own mother asks me ? Does she distrust 
her husband and her son together ? ” 

It began to dawn on the mother that she had fallen 
into her own temptation through the distrust of her 
son. Because she distrusted him, she sought excuse 
for him, and excuse had turned to all but justification : 
she had given place to the devil ! But she must be 
sure about Alister ! She had had enough of the wiles 
of Satan : she must not trust her impressions ! The 
enemy might even now be bent on deceiving her 
afresh ! For a moment she kept silence, then said : — 


424 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“It would be a grand thing to have the whole 
country-side your own again — wouldn’t it, 4-lister ? ” 

“ It would, mother ! ” he answered. 

“And have all your people quite under your own 
care ? ” 

“ A grand thing indeed, mother ! ” 

“ How can you say then it is no temptation to you ? ” 

“ Because it is none.” 

“ How is that ? ” 

“ I would not have my clan under a factor of Satan’s, 
mother ! ” 

“ I do not understand you ! ” 

“ What else should I be, if I accepted the oversight 
of them on terms of allegiance to him ! That was how 
he tempted Jesus. I will not be the devil’s steward, to 
call any land or any jieople mine ! ” 

His mother kissed him on the forehead, walked 
erect from the room, and went to her own to hum- 
ble herself afresh. 

In the morning, Alister took his dinner of bread and 
cheese in his pocket, and set out for the tomb on the 
hill-top. There he remained until the evening, and 
wrote his answer, sorely missing Ian. 

He begged Mr. Peregrine Palmer to dismiss the idea 
of enriching him, thanked him for his great liberality, 
but declared himself entirely content, and determined 
not to change his position: he could not and would 
not avail himself of his generosity. 

Mr. Palmer, unable to supect the reasons at work in 
the chief’s mind, pleased with the genuineness of his 
acknowledgment, and regarding him as a silly fellow 
who would quixotically outdo him in magnanimity, 
answered in a more familiar, almost jocular strain. He 
must not be unreasonable, he said ; pride was no doubt 


A GENEROUS DOWRY. 


425 


an estimable weakness, but it might be carried too far ; 
men must act upon realities not fancies ; he must learn 
to have an eye to the main chance, and eschew heroics : 
what was life without money ! It was not as if he gave 
it grudgingly, for he made him heartily welcome. The 
property was in truth but a flea-bite to him ! He hoped 
the Macruadh would live long to enjoy it, and make 
his father-in-law the great-grandfather of chiefs, per- 
petuating his memory to ages unborn. There was 
more to the same effect, void neither of eloquence nor 
of a certain good-heartedness, which the laird both 
recognized and felt. 

It was again his painful turn. He had now to make 
his refusal as positive as words could make it. Pie 
said he was sorry to appear headstrong, perhaps un- 
civil and ungrateful, but he could not and would not 
accept anything beyond the priceless gift of Mercy’s 
hand. 

Not even then did Peregrine Palmer divine that his 
offered gift was despised ; it was to him an idea all but 
impossible of conception. He read merely opposition, 
and was determined to have his way. Next time he 
too wrote positively, though far from unkindly : — 
the Macruadh must take the land with his daughter, or 
leave both ! 

The chief replied that he could not yield his claim 
to Mercy, for he loved her and believed she loved him ; 
therefore begged Mr. Peregrine Palmer, of his gener- 
osity, to leave the decision with his daughter. 

The next was a letter from Mercy, entreating Alister 
not to hurt her father by seeming to doubt the kind- 
ness of his intentions. She assured him her father was 
not the man to interfere with his management of the 
estate ; the shooting was all he cared about, and if that 


426 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


was the difficulty, she imagined even that might be got 
over. She ended praying that he would, for her sake, 
cease making much of a trifle, for such the greatest prop- 
erty in the world must be betwixt them. No man, she 
said, could love a woman right, who would not be under 
the poorest obligation to her people ! 

The chief answered her in the tenderest way, assur- 
ing her that if the property had been hers he would 
only have blessed her for it ; that he was not making 
much ado about nothing ; that pride, or unwillingness 
to be indebted had nothing to do with his determina- 
tion ; that the thing was with him in very truth a mat- 
ter of conscience. He implored her therefore from 
the botton of his heart to do her best to persuade her 
father — if she would save him who loved her more 
than his own soul, from a misery God only could make 
him able to bear. 

Mercy was bewildered. She neither understood nor 
suspected. She wrote again, saying her father was 
now thoroughly angry ; that she found herself without 
argument, the thing being incomprehensible to her as 
to her father ; that she could not see where the con- 
science of the thing lay. Her terror was, that, if he 
persisted, she would be driven to think he did not care 
for her ; his behavior she had tried in vain to reconcile 
with what he had taught her ; if he destroyed her faith 
in him, all her faith might go, and she be left without 
God as well as without him ! 

Then Alister saw that necessity had culminated, and 
that it was no longer possible to hold anything back. 
Whatever other suffering he might cause her, Mercy 
must not be left to think him capable of sacrificing her 
to an absurdity ! She must know the truth of the mat- 
ter, and how it was to him of the deepest conscience ! 


A GENEROUS DOWRY. 


427 


He must let her see that if he allowed her to persuade 
him, it would be to go about thenceforward consumed 
of self-contempt, a slave to the property, no more its 
owner than if he had stolen it, and in danger of com- 
mitting suicide to escape hating his wife ! 

For the man without a tender conscience, can not 
imagine the state to which another may come, who 
carries one about with him, stinging and accusing him 
all day long. 

So out of a heart aching with very fulness, Alister 
wrote the truth to Mercy. And Mercy, though it filled 
her with grief and shame, had so much love for the 
truth, and for the man who had waked that love, that 
she understood him, and loved him through all the pain 
of his words ; loved him the more for daring the risk 
of losing her; loved him yet the more for cleaving to 
her, while loathing the yrfere thought of sharing her 
wealth ; loved him most of all that he was immaculate 
in truth. 

She carried the letter to her father’s room, laid it 
before him without a word, and went out again. 

The storm gathered swiftly, and burst at once. Not 
two minutes seemed to have passed when she heard his 
door open and a voice of wrathful displeasure call out 
her name. She returned — in fear, but in fortitude. 

Then first she knew her father ! — for although wrath 
and injustice were at home in him, they seldom showed 
themselves out of doors. He treated her as a willing 
party to an unspeakable insult from a highland boor to 
her own father. To hand him such a letter was the 
same as to have written it herself ! she identified her- 
self with the writer when she became the bearer of the 
mangy hound’s insolence ! He raged at Mercy as in 
truth he had never raged before. If once she spoke to 


428 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the fellow again, he would turn her out of the house ! 

She would have left the room. He locked the door, 
set a chair before his writing-table, and ordered her to 
sit there and write to his dictation. But no power on 
earth or under it would have prevailed to make Mercy 
write as her own the words that were not hers. 

“ Y ou must excuse me, papa ! ” she said in a tone 
unheard from her before. 

This raising of the rampart of human dignity, crowned 
with refusal, between him and his own child, galled him 
afresh. 

“ Then you shall be compelled ! ” he said, with an 
oath through his clenched teeth. 

Mercy stood silent and motionless. 

“ Go to your room. By heaven you shall stay there 
till you do as I tell you ! ” 

He was between her and the door. 

“ You need not think to gain your point by obsti- 
nacy,” he added. “I swear that not another word 
shall pass between you and that blockhead of a chief 
not if I have to turn watch-dog myself! ” 

He made way for her, but did not open the door. 
She left the room too angry to cry, and went to her 
own. Her fear of her father had vanished. With 
Alister on her side she could stand against the world ! 
She went to her window. She could not see the cot- 
tage from it, but she could see the ruin, and the hill of 
the crescent fire, on which she had passed through the 
shadow of death. Gazing on the hill she remembered 
what Alister would have her do, and with her Father 
in heaven sought shelter from her father on earth. 


CHAPTER XLII. 


MISTEESS CONAL. 

M R. PEREGRINE PALMER’S generosity had 
in part rested on the idea of securing the estate 
against reverse of fortune sufficiently possible though 
not expected ; while with the improvements almost in 
hand, the shooting would make him a large return, 
lie felt all the more wronged by the ridiculous scruples 
of the chief — in which after all, though he could not 
have said why, he did not quite believe. It never 
occurred to him that, even had the land been so come 
by that the chief could accept a gift of it, he would, 
upon the discovery that it had been so secured from his 
creditors, at once have insisted on placing it at their 
disposal. 

His wrath proceeded to vent itself in hastening the 
realization of his schemes of improvement, for he was 
well aware they would be worse than distasteful to the 
Macruadh : their first requirement was the removal of 
every peasant within his power capable of violating the 
sanctity of the deer forest into which he and his next 
neighbor had agreed to turn the whole of their property. 
While the settlement of his daughter was pending, he 
had seen that the point might cause trouble unless pre- 
viously understood between him and the chief ; but he 
never doubted the recovery of the land would reconcile 
the latter to the loss of the men : now he chuckled 
with wrathful chuckle to think how entirely he had him 
429 


430 


what’s mine’s mine. 


in his power for justifiable annoyance : he believed 
himself about to do nothing but good to the country in 
removing from it its miserable inhabitants, whom the 
sentimental indulgence of their so-called chief kept con- 
tented with their poverty, and with whom interference 
must now enrage him. How he hated the whole 
wretched pack. 

What Mr. Palmer’s doing of good to the country 
meant was the enabling of the land to put more money 
in the pockets of Mr. Smith and himself by feeding 
wild animals instead of men. To tell such landowners 
that they are simply running a tilt at the creative 
energy, can be of no use : they do not believe in God, 
however much they may protest and imagine they do. 

The next day but one, he sent Mistress Conal the 
message that she must be out of her hut, goods and 
gear, within a fortnight. He was not sure that the 
thing was legally correct, but he would risk it. She 
might go to law if she would, but he would at once 
with her begin ! The chief might take up her quarrel 
if he chose : nothing would please Mr. Palmer more 
than to involve him in a law-suit, clear him out, and 
send him adrift ! His money might be contemptible, 
but the chief should find it at least dangerous ! Con- 
tempt w^ould not stave off a land-slip. 

Mistress Conal, with a rage and scorn that made her 
feel every inch a witch, and accompanied by her black 
cat, which might or might not be, the innocent animal 
the neighbors did not think him, hurried to the Mac- 
ruadh, and informed him that “ the lowland thief” had 
given her notice to quit the house of her fathers within 
a fortnight. 

“ I fear much we cannot help it ! the house is on his 
land ! ” said the chief sorrowfully. 


MISTRESS CONAL. 


431 


“ His land ! ” echoed the old woman. “ Is the nest of 
the old eagle his land ? Can he make his heather white 
or his ptarmigan black ? Will he dry up the lochs, and 
stay the rivers ? Will he remove the mountains from 
their places, or cause the generations of men to cease 
from the earth ? Defend me, chief ! I come to you 
for the help that was never sought in vain from the 
Macruadh ! ” 

“ What help I have is yours without the asking,” re- 
turned the chief. “I cannot do more than is in my 
power ! One thing only I can promise you — that you 
shall lack neither food nor shelter.” 

“ My chief will abandon me to the wolf ! ” she cried. 

“ Never ! But I can only protect you, not your house. 
He may have no right to turn you out at such short 
notice ; but it could only be a matter of weeks. To go 
to law with him would but leave me without a roof to 
shelter you when your own was gone ! ” 

“ The dead would have shown him into the dark, ere 
he turned me into the cold ! ” she muttered, and turning, 
left him. 

The chief was greatly troubled. He had heard noth- 
ing of such an intention on the part of his neighbor. 
Could it be for revenge ? He had heard nothing yet of 
his answer to Mercy. All he could do was to represent 
to Mr. Palmer the trouble the poor woman was in, and 
to let him know that the proceeding threatened would 
render him very unpopular in the strath. This he 
thought it best to do by letter. 

It could not enrage Mr. Palmer more, but it did so 
afresh. He vowed that the moment the time was up, 
out the old witch should go, neck and crop ; and with 
the help of Mr. Smith, provided men for the purpose 
who did not belong to the neighborhood. 


432 


what’s mine’s mine. 


The chief kept hoping to hear from the New House, 
but neither his letter to Mercy nor to her father re- 
ceived any answer. How he wished for Ian to tell him 
what he ought to do ! His mother could not help him. 
He saw nothing for it but wait events. 

Day after day passed, and he heard nothing. He 
would have tried to find out the state of things at the 
New House, but until war was declared that would not 
be right ! Mr. Palmer might be seeking how with dig- 
nity to move in the matter, for certainly the chief had 
placed him in a position yet more unpleasant than his 
own ! He must wait on ! 

The very day fortnight after the notice given, about 
three o T clock in the afternoon, came flying to the chief 
a ragged little urchin of the village, too breathless 
almost to make intelligible his news — that there were 
men at Mistress Conal’s who would not go out of her 
house, and she was swearing at them like her own black 
cat. 

The chief ran : could the new laird be actually un- 
housing the aged, helpless woman ? It was the part of 
a devil and not of a man ! As he neared the place — 
there w< ftfe her poor possessions already on the road- 
side ! — her one chair and stool, ber bedding, her three- 
footed pot, her girdle, her big chest, all that she could 
call hers in the world ! and when he came in sight of the 
cottage, there she was being brought out of it, struggling, 
screaming, and cursing in the grasp of two men. Fierce 
in its glow was the torrent of* Gaelic that rushed from 
the crater of her lips, molten in the volcanic depths of 
her indignant soul. 

When one thinks of the appalling amount of rage 
exhausted by poor humans upon wrong, the energy of 
indignation, whether issued or suppressed, and how 


MISTRESS CONAL. 


433 


little it has done to right wrong, to draw acknowledg- 
ment or amends from self-satisfied insolence, he natu- 
rally asks what becomes of so much vital force. Can 
it fare differently from other forces and be lost ? The 
energy of evil is turned into the mill-race of good ; but 
the wrath of man, even his righteous wrath, worketh not 
the righteousness of God ! What becomes of it ? If it 
be not lost, and have but changed its form, in what 
shape shall we look for it ? 

“ Set her down,” cried the chief. “ I will take 
care of her.” 

When she heard the voice of her champion, the old 
woman let go a cat-like screech of triumph, and her 
gliding Gaelic, smoothness itself in articulation, flowed 
yet firier in word, and fiercer in tone. But the men 
who were thus ejecting her, — hangers on of the sheriff- 
court in the county town, employed to give a color of 
law to the doubtful proceeding — did not know the 
chief. 

“ Oh, we’ll set her down,” answered one of them in- 
solently, “ — and glad enough too ! but we’ll have her 
on the public road with her sticks first! ” 

Infuriated by the man’s disregard of her chief, Mis- 
tress Conal struck her nails into his face, and with a 
curse he flung her from him. She turned instantly on 
the other with the same argument ad hominem , and 
found herself staggering on her own weak limbs to a 
severe fall, when the chief caught and saved her. She 
struggled hard to break from him and rush again into 
the hut, declaring she would not leave it if they burned 
her alive in it, but he held her fast. 

There was a pause, for one or two who had accom- 
panied the mem employed, knew the chief, and their 
reluctance to go on with the ruthless deed in his pres- 


434 


what’s mine’s mine. 


ence, influenced the rest. Report of the ejection had 
spread, and the neighbors came running from the vil- 
lage. A crowd seemed to be gathering. Again and 
again Mistress Conal tried to escape from Alister and 
rush into the cottage. 

“You too, my chief!” she cried; “you turned 
against the poor of your people ! ” 

“No, Mistress Conal,” he answered; “I am too 
much your friend to let you kill yourself ! ” 

“We have orders, Macruadh, to set fire to the 
hovel,” said one of the men, touching his hat respect- 
fully. 

“ They’ll roast my black one ! ” shrieked the old 
woman. 

“ Small fear for him,” said a man’s voice from the 
little crowd, “ if half be true — ! ” 

Apparently the speaker dared no more. 

“Fire won’t singe a hair of him, Mistress Conal,” 
said another voice ; “ he’s too well used to it ! ” 

“ Come along, and let’s get it over ! ” cried the leader 
of the ejection-party. “It won’t take many minutes 
once it’s well a going, and there’s fire enough on the 
hearth to set Ben Cruachan in a blaze ! ” 

“ Is everything out of it ? ” demanded the chief. 

“All but her cat. We’ve done our best, sir, and 
searched everywhere, but he’s not to be found. There’s 
nothing else left.” 

“ It’s a lie ! ” screamed Mistress Conal. “ Is there 
not a great pile of peats, carried on my own back from 
the moss ! Ach, you robbers ! would you burn the 
good peats ? ” 

“ What good will the peats be to you, woman,” said 
one of them not unkindly, “ when you have no 
hearth?” 


MISTRESS C0NAL. 


435 


She gave a loud wail, but checked it. 
u I will bum them on the road,” she said. “ They 
will keep me a few hours from the dark ! When I die 
I will go straight up to God and implore his curse 
upon you, on your bed and board, your hands and tools, 
your body and soul. May your every prayer be lost in 
the wide murk, and never get to his ears ! May — ” 

“ Hush ! hush ! ” interposed the chief with great 
gentleness. “ You do not know what you are saying. 
But you do know who tells us to forgive our enemies ! ” 
“ It’s well for him to forgive,” she screamed, “ sitting 
on his grand throne, and leaving me to be turned out 
of my blessed house, on to the cold road ! ” 

“Nannie ! ” said the chief, calling her by her name, 
“ because a man is unjust to you, is that a reason for 
you to be unjust to him who died for you? You know 
as well as he, that you will not be left out on the cold 
road. He knows, and so do you, that while I have a 
house over my head, there is a warm corner in it for 
you ! And as for his sitting on his throne, you know 
that all these years he has been trying to take you up 
beside him, and can’t get you to set your foot on the 
first step of it ! Be ashamed of yourself, Nannie ! ” 

She was silent. 

“ Bring out her peats,” he said, turning to the by- 
standers ; “ we have small need, with winter on the 
road, to waste any of God’s gifts ! ” 

They obeyed. But as they carried them out, and 
down to the road, the number of Mistress Conal’s friends 
kept growing, and a laying together of heads began, 
and a gathering of human fire under glooming eye- 
brows. It looked threatening. Suddenly Mistress 
Conal broke out in a wild yet awful speech, wherein 
truth indeed was the fuel, but earthly wrath supplied 


436 


what’s mine’s mine, 


the prophetic fire. Her friends suspended their talk, 
and her foes their work, to listen. 

English is by no means equally poetic with the 
Gaelic, regarded as a language, and ill serves to repre- 
sent her utterance. Much that seems natural in the 
one language, seems forced and unreal amidst the less 
imaginative forms of the other. I will nevertheless 
attempt in English what can prove little better than an 
imitation of her prophetic outpouring. It was like a 
sermon in this, that she began with a text : — 

“Woe unto them,” she said — and her voice sounded 
like the wind among the great stones of a hillside — ” 
“ that join house to house, that lay field to field, till 
there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the 
midst of the earth ! ” 

This woe she followed with woe upon woe, and 
curse upon curse, now from the Bible, now from some 
old poem of the country, and now from the bitterness 
of her own heart. Then she broke out in purely 
native eloquence : — 

“ Who art thou, O man, born of a woman, to say to 
thy brother, 4 Depart from this earth : here is no foot- 
ing for thee ; all the room had been taken for me ere 
thou was heard of ! What right hast thou in a world 
where I want room for the red deer, and the big sheep, 
and the brown cattle ? Go up, thou infant bald-head ! 
Is there not room above, in the fields of the air ? Is 
there not room below with the dead ? Verily there is 
none here upon the earth ! ’ Who art thou, I say, to 
speak thus to thy fellow, as if he entered the world by 
another door than thyself ! Because thou art rich, is 
he not also a man ? — a man made in the image of the 
same God ? Who but God sent him ? And who but 
God, save thy father was indeed the devil, hath sent 


MISTRESS COITAL. 


437 


thee ? Thou hast to make room for thy brother ! 
What brother of thy house, when a child is born into 
it, would presume to say, 4 Let him begone, and speed- 
ily ! I do not want him ! There is no room for him ! 
I require it all for myself ! ’ Wilt thou say of any 
man, 4 He is not my brother ! ’ when God says he is. 
If thou say, 4 Am I therefore his keeper ? 5 God for 
that saying will brand thee with the brand of Cain. 
Yea the hour will come, when those ye will not give 
room to breathe, will rise panting in the agony, yea 
fury of their necessity, and cry, 4 If we may neither eat 
nor lie down by their leave, lo, we are strong ! let us 
take what they will not give ! If we die we but die ! ’ 
Then shall there be blood to the knees of the fighting 
men, yea, to the horses’ bridles ; and the earth shall be 
left desolate because of you, foul feeders on the flesh 
and blood, on the bodies and souls of men ! In the 
pit of hell you will find room enough, but no drop of 
water ; and it will comfort you little that ye lived 
merrily among pining men ! Which of us has cov- 
eted your silver or your gold? Which of us has 
stretched out the hand to take of your wheat or your 
barley ? All we ask is room to live ! But because ye 
would see the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, 
ye have crushed and straitened us till we are ready to 
cry out, 4 God, for thy mercy’s sake, let us die, lest we 
be guilty of our own blood ! ’ ” 

A solitary man had come down the hill behind, and 
stood alone listening. It was the mover of the wicked- 
ness. In the old time the rights of the people in the land 
were fully recognized; but when the chiefs of Clanruadh 
sold it, they could not indeed sell the rights that were 
not theirs, but they forgot to secure them for the help- 
less, and they were now in the grasp of the selfish and 


438 


what’s mine’s mine. 


greedy, the devourers of the poor. He did not under- 
stand a word the woman was saying, but he was pleased 
to look on her rage, and see the man who had insulted 
him suffer with her. When he began to note the 
glances of lurid fire which every now and then turned 
upon him during Mistress Conal’s speech, he scorned 
the indication : such poor creatures dared venture noth- 
ing, he thought, against the mere appearance of law. 
Under what he counted the chief’s contempt, he had 
already grown worse ; and the thought that perhaps the 
great world might one day look upon him with like 
contempt, wrought in him bitterly; he had not the 
assurance of rectitude which makes contempt hurtless. 
He was crueller now than before the chief’s letter to his 
daughter. 

When Mistress Conal saw him, she addressed herself 
to him directly. What he would have felt had he un- 
derstood, I cannot tell. Never in his life did he know 
how the weak can despise the strong, how the poor can 
scorn the rich ! 

“Worm!” she said, “uncontent with holding the 
land, eating the earth that another may not share ! the 
worms eat but what their bodies will hold, and thou 
canst devour but the fill of thy life ! The hour is at 
hand when the earth will swallow thee, and thy fellow 
worms will eat thee, as thou hast eaten men. The pos- 
sessions of thy brethren thou hast consumed, so that 
they are not ! The holy and beautiful house of my 
fathers — ” she spoke of her poor little cottage, but in 
the words lay spiritual fact — “ mock not its poverty ! ” 
she went on, as if forestalling contempt ; “ for is it not 
a holy house where the woman lay in the agony whence 
first I opened my eyes to the sun? Is it not a holy 
house where my father prayed morning and evening, 


MISTRESS CONAL. 


439 


and read the words of grace and comfort ? Is it not to 
me sacred as the cottage at Nazareth to the poor man 
who lived there with his peasants ? And is not that a 
beautiful house in which a woman’s ear did first listen 
to the words of love? Old and despised I am, but 
once I was younger than any of you, and ye will be old 
and decrepit as I, if the curse of God do not cut you off 
too soon. My Alister would have taken any two of you 
and knocked your heads together. He died fighting 
for his country ; and for his sake the voice of man’s love 
has never again entered my heart : I knew a true man, 
and could be true also. Would to God I were with 
him ! You man-trapping, land-reaving, house-burning 
Sasunnach, do your worst ! I care not.” 

She ceased and the spell was broken. 

“ Come, come ! ” said one of the men impatiently. 
“ Tom, you get a peat, and set it on the top of the 
wall, under the roof. You, too, George ! — and be 
quick. Peats all round ! there are plenty on the 
hearth ! How’s the wind blowing ? — You, Henry, 
make a few holes in the wall here, outside, and we’ll 
set live peats in there. It’s time there was an end to 
this!” 

“ You’re right ; but there’s a better way to end it ! ” 
returned one of the clan, and gave him a shove that 
sent him to the ground. 

“ Men, do your duty ! ” cried Mr. Palmer from be- 
hind. “ I am here — to see you do it ! Never mind 
the old woman ! Of course she thinks it hard ; but 
hard things have got to be done ! it’s the way of the 
world, and all for the best ! ” 

“ Mr. Palmer,” said another of the clan, “ the old 
woman has the right of you : she and hers have lived 
there, in that cottage, for nigh a hundred years.” 


440 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ She has no right. If she thinks she has, let her go 
to the law for it ! In the meantime, I choose to turn 
her off my land. What’s mine’s mine, as I mean 
every man jack of you to know — chief and beggar! ” 

The Macruadh walked up to him. 

“ Pardon me, sir,” he said : “ I doubt much if you 
have a legal right to disturb the poor woman. She 
has never paid rent for her hut, and it has always been 
looked upon as her property.” 

“ Then the chief that sold it swindled both me and 
her ! ” stammered Mr. Palmer, white with rage. “ But 
as for you who call yourself a chief, you are the most 
insolent, ill-bred fellow I ever had to do with, and I 
have not another word to say to you ! ” 

A silence like that before a thunder-storm succeeded. 
Not a man of the clan could for the moment trust his 
hearing: There is nothing the Celtic nature resents 
like rudeness. Then half a dozen at once of the 
Macruadhs rushed upon the insulter of their chief, 
intent on his punishment. 

“ One of you touch him,” cried Alister, “ and I will 
knock him down. I would if he were my foster- 
brother ! ” 

Each eager assailant stood like a block. 

“ Finish your work, men ! ” shouted Mr. Palmer. 

To do him justice he was no coward. 

“ Clansmen,” said the chief, “ let him have his way. 
I do not see how to resist the wrong without bringing 
more evil upon us than we can meet. We must leave 
it to him who says ‘Vengeance is mine.’ ” 

The Macruadhs murmured their obedience, and 
stood sullenly locking on. The disseizors went into 
the hut, and carried out the last of the fuel. Then 
they scooped holes in the turf walls, inside to leeward, 


MISTRESS CONAL. 


441 


outside to windward, and taking live peats from the 
hearth, put them in the holes. A few minutes, and 
poor Nannie’s “holy and beautiful house” was a great 
fire. 

When they began to apply the fire, the chief would 
at once have taken the old woman away, but he 
dreaded an outbreak and lingered. When the fire 
began to run up the roof, Mistress Conal broke from 
him, and darted to the door. Everyone rushed to 
seize her, Mr. Palmer with the rest. 

“ Blackie ! Blackie ! Blackie ! ” she shrieked like a 
madwoman. 

While the men encumbered each other in their en- 
deavors to get her away, down shot the cat from the 
blazing roof, a fizz of fire in his black fur, his tail as 
thick as his neck, an infernal howling screech of hatred 
in his horrible throat, and, wild with rage and fear, 
flung himself straight upon Mr. Palmer. A roar of 
delighted laughter burst forth. He bawled out — and 
his bawl was mingled with a scream — to take the 
brute off him, and his own men hurried to his rescue ; 
but the fury-frantic animal had dug his claws and 
teeth into his face and clung to him so that they had 
to choke him off. The chief caught up Mistress Conal 
and carried her off : there was no danger of any one 
hurting Mr. Palmer now ! 

He bore her on one arm like a child, and indeed she 
was not much heavier. But she kept her face turned 
and her eyes fixed on her burning home, and leaning 
over the shoulder of the chief, poured out, as he car- 
ried her farther and farther from the scene of the out- 
rage, a flood of maledictory prophecy against the 
doers of the deed. The laird said never a word, 
never looked behind him, while she, almost tumbling 


442 


what’s mine’s mine. 


down his back as she cursed with outstretched arms, 
deafened him with her raging. He walked steadily 
down the path to the road, where he stepped into the 
midst of her goods and chattels. The sight of them 
diverted a little the current of her wrath. 

“ Where are you going, Macruadh ? ” she cried, as 
he walked on. “ See you not my property lying to 
the hand of the thief ? Know you not that the greedy 
Sasunnach will carry everything away ! ” 

“ I can’t carry them and you too, Mistress Conal ! ” 
said the chief, gaily. 

“ Set me down then. Who ever asked you to carry 
me ! And where would you be carrying me ? My 
place is with my things ! ” 

“Your place is with me, Mistress Conal ! I belong 
to you, and you belong to me, and I am taking you 
home to my mother.” 

At the word, silence fell, not on the lips, but on the 
soul of the raving prophetess : the chief she loved, his 
mother she feared. 

“ Set me down, Macruadh ! ” she pleaded in gentle 
tone. “ Don’t carry me to her empty-handed ! Set 
me down straight ; I will load my back with my goods, 
and bear them to my lady, and throw them at her 
feet.” 

“ As soon as we get to the cottage,” said the chief, 
as he strode on with his reluctant burden, “ I will send 
up two men with wheelbarrows to bring them home.” 

“Home, said you?” cried the old woman, and 
burst into the tearless wailing of a child ; “ there is a 
home for me no more ! My house was all that was 
left me of my people, and it is your own that makes a 
house a home ! In the long winter nights, when T sat 
by the fire and heard the wind howl, and the snow pat, 


MISTRESS CONAL. 


443 


pat like the small hands of my little brothers on the 
window, my heart grew glad within me, and the dead 
came back to my soul! When I took the book, I 
heard the spirit of my father reading through my own 
lips ! And oh, my mother ! my mother ! ” 

She ceased as if in despair. 

“Surely, Nannie, you will be at home with your 
chief ! ” said Alister. “ My house is your house now, 
and your dead will come to it ! ” 

“ It is their chiefs house, and they will ! ” she 
returned. “ They loved their chief. Shall we not make 
a fine clan when we’re all gathered, we Macruadhs! 
Man nor woman can say I did anything to disgrace it ! ” 
“Lest we should disgrace it,” said the chief, “we 
must bear with patience what is sent upon it.” 

He carried her into the drawing-room and told her 
story, then stood, to the delighted amusement of his 
mother, with his little old sister in his arms, waiting 
her orders, like a big boy carrying the baby, who now 
and then moaned a little, but did not speak. 

His mother called Nancy, and told her to bring the 
tea-tray, and get ready for Mistress Conal the room 
next Nancy’s own, that she might be near to wait on 
her ; and thither, when warmed and fed, the chief car- 
ried her. 

But the terrible excitement had so thinned the main- 
spring of her time-watch, that it soon broke. She did 
not live many weeks. From the first she sank into great 
dejection, and her mind wandered. She said her father 
never came to see her now; that he was displeased 
with her for leaving the house ; and that she knew now 
she ought to have staid and been burned in it. The 
chief reminded her that she had no choice, but had 
been carried bodily away. 


444 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“Yes, yes,” she answered; “bat they do not know 
that! I must make haste and tell them! Who can 
bear her own people to think ill of her ! — I’m coming ! 
I’m coming ! I’ll tell you all about it ! I’m an honest 
woman yet ! ” 

Another thing troubled her sorely, for which she 
would hear no consolation : Blackie had vanished ! — 
whether he was killed at the time of his onslaught on 
Mr. Palmer, or was afterwards shot ; whether, disgusted 
with the treatment of his old home, or the memory of 
what he had there suffered, he had fled the strath, and 
gone to the wild cats among the hills, or back to the 
place which some averred he came from, no one could 
tell. In her wanderings she talked more of her cat 
than of anything else, and would say things that with 
some would have gone far to justify the belief that the 
animal was by nature on familiar terms with the ele- 
ment which had yet driven him from his temporary 
home. 

Nancy was more than uneasy at having the witch so 
near, but by no means neglected her duty to her. One 
night she woke and had for some time lain listening 
whether she stirred or not, when suddenly quavered 
through the dark the most horrible cat-cry she had ever 
heard. In abject terror she covered her head, and lay 
shuddering. The cry came again, and kept coming at 
regular intervals, but drawing nearer and nearer. Its 
expression was of intense and increasing pain. The 
creature whence it issued seemed to come close to the 
house, then with difficulty to scramble up on the roof, 
where it went on yowling, and screeching, and throwing 
itself about as if tying itself in knots, Nancy said, until 
at last it gave a great choking, gobbling scream, and 
fell to the ground, after which all was quiet. Per- 


MISTRESS CONAL. 


445 


suading herself it was only a cat, she tried to sleep, and 
at length succeeded. When §he woke in the morning, 
the first thing she did was to go out, fully expecting to 
find the cat lying at the foot of the wall. No cat was 
there. She went then as usual to attend to the old 
woman. She was dead and cold. 

The clan followed her body to the grave, and the 
black cat was never seen. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


T was plainly of no use for the chief to attempt mol- 



J- lifying Mr. Palmer. So long as it was possible 
for him to be what he was, it must be impossible for 
him to understand the conscience that compelled the 
chief to refuse participation in the results of his life. 
Where a man’s own conscience is content, how shall he 
listen to the remonstrance of another man’s ! But even 
if he could have understood that the offence was una- 
voidable, that would rather have increased than dimin- 
ished the pain of the hurt ; as it was, the chief’s deter- 
mination must seem to Mr. Palmer an unprovoked insult ! 
Thus reflecting, Alister tried all he could to be fair to 
the man whom he had driven to cut his acquaintance. 

It was now a lonely time for Alister, lonelier than 
ever before. Ian was not within reach even by letter ; 
Mercy was shut up from him : he had not seen or heard 
from her since writing his explanation ; and his mother 
did not sympathize with his dearest earthly desire : She 
would be greatly relieved, yea, heartily glad, if Mercy 
was denied him ! She loved Ian more than the chief, 
yet could have better borne to see him the husband of 
Mercy ; what was in this regard more than wanting to 
the equality of her sons in her love was balanced by her 
respect for the chief of the clan and head of the family. 
Alister’s light was thus left to burn in very darkness, 
that it might burn the better ; for as strength is made 


446 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


447 


perfect through weakness, so does the light within grow 
by darkness. It was the people that sat in darkness 
that saw a great light. He was brought closer than 
ever to first principles ; had to think and judge 
more than ever of the right thing to do — first of 
all, the right thing with regard to Mercy. Of giving 
her up, there was of course no thought ; so long as she 
would be his, he was hers as entirely as the bonds of any 
marriage could make him ! But she owed something to 
her father ! and of all men the patriarchal chief was the 
last to dare interfere with the rights of a father. But 
they must be rights , not rights turned into, or founded 
upon wrongs. With the first in acknowledging true, 
he would not be with the last even in yielding to false 
rights ! The question was, what were the rights of a 
father? One thing was clear, that it was the duty, 
therefore the right of a father, to prevent his child from 
giving herself away before she could know what she did ; 
and Mercy was not yet of age. That one woman might 
be capable of knowing at fifteen, and another not at 
fifty left untouched the necessity for fixing a limit. It 
was his own duty and right, on the other hand, to do what 
he could to prevent her from being in anyway deceived 
concerning him. It was essential that nothing should 
be done, resolved, or yielded, by the girl, through any 
misunderstanding he could forestall, or because of any 
falsehood he could frustrate. He must therefore con- 
trive to hold some communication with her ! 

First of all, however, he must learn how she was 
treated ! It was not in fiction only or the ancient clan- 
histories that tyrannical and cruel things were done ! 
A tragedy is even more a tragedy that it has not much 
diversity of incident, that it is acted in commonplace 
surroundings, and that the agents of it are common- 


448 


what’s mine’s mine. 


place persons — fathers and mothers acting from the 
best of law or selfish motives. Where either Mammon 
or Society is worshipped, in love, longing, or fear, there 
is room for any falsehood, any cruelty, any suffering. 

There were several of the clan employed about the 
New House of whom Alister might have sought infor- 
mation ; but he was of another construction from the 
man of fashion in the old plays, whose first love-strategy 
is always to bribe the lady’s maid : the chief scorned to 
learn anything through those of a man’s own household, 
lie fired a gun, and ran up a flag on the old castle, which 
brought Rob of the Angels at full speed, and comforted 
the heart of Mercy sitting disconsolate at her window : 
it was her chief’s doing, and might have to do with 
her ! 

Having told Rob the state of matters between him 
and the New House — 

“ I need not desire you, Rob,” he concluded, “to be 
silent ! You may of course let your father know, but 
never a soul besides. From this moment, every hour 
your .father does not actually need you, be somewhere on 
the hills where you can see the New House. I want to 
learn first whether she goes out at all. With the dark 
you must draw nearer the house. But I will have no 
questioning of the servants or anyone employed about 
the house ; I will never use a man’s pay to thwart his 
plans nor yet make any man even unconsciously a 
traitor.” 

Rob understood and departed ; but before he had 
news for his master, an event occurred which superseded 
his service. 

The neighbors, Mr. Peregrine Palmer and Mr. Smith, 
had begun to enclose their joint estates for a deer- 
forest, and had engaged men to act as curators. They 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


449 


were from the neighborhood, but none of them belonged 
to Strathruadh, and not one knew the boundaries of the 
district they had to patrol ; nor indeed were the boun- 
daries everywhere precisely determined: why should 
they be, where all was heather and rock? Until game- 
sprinkled space grew valuable, who would care whether 
this or that lump of limestone rooted in the solid earth 
were the actual property of the one or the other ! Either 
would make the other welcome to blast and cart it 
away ! 

There was just one person who knew all about the 
boundaries that was to be known ; he could not in 
places draw their lines with absolute assurance, but he 
had better grounds for his conclusions than anyone else 
could have ; it was Hector of the Stags. For who 
so likely to understand them as he who knew the sur- 
face within them as well as the clay-floor of his own 
hut? If he did not everywhere know where the march- 
line fell, at least he knew perfectly where it ought to 
fall. 

It happened just at this time that the Mistress told 
Hector she would be glad of a deer intending to cure 
part for winter use; the next day, therefore, — the 
first of Rob of the Angels’ secret service — he stalked 
one across the hill-farm, got a shot at it near the cave- 
house, brought it down, and was busy breaking it, when 
two men came creeping up behind him, threw them- 
selves upon him, and managed, the better for themselves, 
to secure him before he had a chance of defending him- 
self. Finding he was deaf and dumb, one of them 
knew who he must be, and would have let him go ; but 
the other, eager to ingratiate himself with the new 
laird, used such arguments to the contrary as prevailed 
with his companion, and they set out for the New 


450 


what’s mine’s mine. 


House, Hector between them with his hands tied. An- 
noyed and angry at being thus treated like a malefactor, 
he yet found amusement in the notion of their mistake. 
But he found it awkward to be unable to use that 
readiest weapon of human defence, the tongue. If 
only his ears and mouth , as he called Rob in their own 
speech, had been with him ! When he saw, however, 
where they were taking him, he was comforted, for 
Rob was almost certain to see him : wherever he was, 
he was watching the New House ! He went com- 
posedly along with them therefore, fuming and snort- 
ing, not caring to escape. 

When Rob caught sight of the three, he could not 
think how it was that his father walked so unlike him- 
self. He could not be hurt, for his step was strong 
and steady as ever ; not the less was there something 
of the rhythm gone out of his motion ! there was “ a 
broken music ” in his gait ! He took the telescope 
which the chief had lent him, and turned it upon him. 
Discovering then that his father’s hands were bound 
behind his back, fiercest indignation overwhelmed the 
soul of Rob of the Angels. His father bound like a 
criminal ! — his father, the best of men ! What could 
the devils mean? Ah, they were taking him to the 
New House ! He shut up his telescope, laid it down 
by a stone, and bounded to meet them, sharpening his 
knife on his hand as he went. 

The moment they were near enough, signs, unintel- 
ligible to the keepers, began to pass between the father 
and son : Rob’s meant that he must let him pass un- 
noticed; Hector’s that he understood. So, with but 
the usual salutation of a stranger, Rob passed them. 
The same moment he turned, and with one swift sweep 
of his knife, severed the bonds of his father. The old 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


451 


man stepped back, and father and son stood fronting 
the enemy. 

“ Now,” said Rob, “ if you are honest men, stand to 
it ! How dared you bind Hector of the Stags ? ” 

“ Because he is not an honest man,” replied one of 
them. 

Rob answered him with a blow. The man made at 
him, but Hector stepped between. 

“ Say that again of my father,” cried Rob, “ who 
has no speech to defend himself, and I will drive my 
knife into you.” 

“We are only doing our duty!” said the other. 
“ We came upon him there cutting up the deer he had 
just killed on the new laird’s land.” 

“ Who are you to say which is the stranger’s 
and which the Macruadh’s? Neither my father 
nor I have ever seen the faces of you in the 
country! Will you pretend to know the marches 
better than my father, who was born and bred 
in the heather, and known every stone on the face 
of the hills?” 

“We can’t help where he was born or what he 
knows ! he was on our land ! ” 

« He is the Macruadh’s keeper and was on his own 
land. You will get yourselves into trouble ! ” 

“ We’ll take our chance ! ” 

“ Take your man then ! ” 

“If he try to escape, I swear by the bones of my 
grandfather,” said the more inimical of the two, the 
inheritor of a clan-feud with the Macruadhs, “ I will 
shoot him.” 

Rob of the Angels burst into a scornful laugh. 

“ You will ! will you ? ” 

“ I will not kill him ; I don’t want to be hanged for 


452 


what’s mine’s mine. 


him ! but I will empty my shot-barrel into the legs of 
him ! So take your chance ; you are warned ! ” 

They had Hector’s gun, and Rob had no weapon 
but his knife. Nor was he inclined to use either now 
he had cooled a little. He turned to his father. The 
old man understood perfectly what had passed between 
them, and signed to Rob that he would go on to the 
New House, and Rob might run and let the chief know 
what had happened. The same thing was in Rob’s 
mind for he saw how it would favor the desires of his 
chief, bringing them all naturally about the place. But 
he must first go with his father on the chance of learn- 
ing something. 

“We will go with you,” he said. 

“We don’t want you ! ” 

“ But I mean to go ! — My father is not able to 
speak for himself ! ” 

“ You know nothing.” 

“ I know what he knows. The lie does not grow in 
our strath.” 

“ You crow high, my cock ! ” 

“No higher than I strike,” answered Rob. In the 
eyes of the men Rob was small and weak ; but there 
was something in him, notwithstanding, that looked 
dangerous, and, though far from cowards, they thought 
it as well to leave him alone. 

Mercy at her window where was her usual seat now 
saw them coming, and instinctively connected their 
appearance with her father’s new measures of protec- 
tion ; and when the men turned towards the kitchen 
she ran down to learn what she could. Rob greeted 
her with a smile as he entered. 

“ I am going to fetch the Macruadh,” he whispered, 
and turning went out again. 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


453 


He told the chief that at the word her face lighted 
up as with the rise of the moon. 

One of the maids went and told her master that they 
had got a poacher in the kitchen. 

Mr. Palmer’s eyes lightened under his black brows 
when he saw the captive, whom he knew by sight and 
by report. His men told him the story their own way, 
never hinting a doubt as to whose was the land on 
which the deer had been killed. 

“Where is the nearest magistrate?” he inquired 
with grand severity. 

“ The nearest is the Macruadh, sir ! ” said a high- 
lander who had come from work in the garden to see 
what was going on. 

“ I cannot apply to him ; the fellow is one of his own 
men ! ” 

“The Macruadh does what is just !” rejoined the 
man. 

His master vouchsafed him no reply. He would not 
show his wrath against the chief : it would be undigni- 
fied! 

“ Take him to the tool-house, and lock him up till I 
think what to do with him. Bring me the key.” 

The butler led the way, and Hector followed between 
his captors. They might have been showing him to 
his bed-room so calm was he : Rob gone to fetch the 
chief, his imprisonment could not last — and for the 
indignity, was he not in the right ! 

As Mr. Palmer left the kitchen, his eye fell on 
Mercy. 

“ Go to your room,” he said angrily, and turned from 
her. 

She obeyed in silence, consoling herself that from 
her window she could see the arrival of the chief. Nor 


454 


what’s mine’s mine. 


had she watched long when she saw him coming alon 
the road with Rob. At the gate she lost sight oi 
them. Presently she heard voices in the hall, and 
crept down the stair far enough to hear. 

“ I could commit you for a breach of the peace, Mr. 
Palmer,” she heard the chief say. “ You ought to have 
brought the man to me. As a magistrate I order his 
release. But I give my word he shall be forthcoming 
when legally required.” 

“ Your word is no bail. The man was taken poach- 
ing. I have him, and I will keep him.” 

“ Let me see him then, that I may learn from him- 
self where he shot the deer.” 

“ lie shall go before Mr. Smith.” 

“ Then I beg you will take him at once. I will go 
with him. But listen a moment, Mr. Palmer. When 
this same man, my keeper, took your guest poaching 
on my ground, I let Mr. Sercombe go. I could have 
committed him as you would commit Hector. I ask 
you in return to let Hector go. Being deaf and dumb, 
and the hills the joy of his life, confinement will be 
terrible to him.” 

“ I will do nothing of the kind. You could never 
have committed a gentleman for a mistake. This is 
quite a different thing ! ” 

“ It is a different thing, for Hector cannot have made 
a mistake. He could not have followed a deer on to 
your ground without knowing it ! ” 

“ I make no question of that ! ” 

“ He says he was not on your property.” 

“ Says ! ” 

“ He is not a man to lie ! ” 

Mr. Palmer smiled. 

“ Once more I pray you, let us see him together.” 


'JO 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


455 


“You shall not see him.” 

“ Then take him at once before Mr. Smith.” 

“ Mr. Smith is not at home.” 

“ Take him before some magistrate — I care not who. 
There is Mr. Chisholm ! ” 

“ I will take him when and where it suits me.” 
w Then as a magistrate, I will set him free. I am 
sorry to make myself unpleasant to you. Of all things 
I would have avoided it. But I cannot let the man 
suffer unjustly. Where have you put him?” 
u Where you will not find him.” 

“ He is one of my people ; I must have him ! ” 

“ Your people ! A set of idle, poaching fellows ! 
By heaven, the strath shall be rid of the pack of them, 
before another year is out ! ” 

“While I have land in it, with room for them to 
stand upon, the strath shall not be rid of them ! — But 
this is idle ! Where have you put Hector of the 
Stags ? ” 

Mr. Palmer laughed. 

“ In safe keeping. There is no occasion to be uneasy 
about him ! He shall have plenty to eat and drink? 
be well punished, and show the rest of the rascals the 
way out of the country ! ” 

“ Then I must find him ! You compel me ! ” 

So saying the chief, with intent to begin his search 
at the top of the house in the hope of seeing Mercy, 
darted up the stair. She heard him coming, went a 
few steps higher, and waited. On the landing he saw 
her, white, with flashing eyes. Their hands clasped 
each other — for a moment only, but the moment was 
of eternity, not of time. 

“ You will find Hector in the tool-house,” she said 
aloud. 


456 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“You shameless hussy!” cried her father, follow- 
ing the chief in a fury. 

Mercy ran up the stair. The chief turned and faced 
Mr. Palmer. 

“You have no business in my house! ” 

“ I have the right of a magistrate.” 

“ You have no right. Leave it at once.” 

“Allow me to pass.” 

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself — making a 
girl turn traitor to her own father ! ” 

“You ought to be proud of a daughter with the con- 
science and courage to turn against you ! ” 

The chief passed Mr. Palmer, and running down the 
stair, joined Rob of the Angels where lie stood at the 
door in a group composed of the keepers and most of 
the servants. 

“ Do you know the tool-house ? ” he said to Rob. 

“ Yes, Macruadh.” 

“Lead the way then. Your father is there.” 

“ On no account let them open the door,” cried Mr. 
Palmer. “ They may hold through it what communi- 
cation they please.” 

“You will not be saying much to a deaf man 
through inch boards ! ” remarked the clansman from the 
garden. 

Mr. Palmer hurried after them, and his men followed. 

Alister found the door fast and solid, without handle. 
He turned a look on his companion, and seemed about 
to run his weight against the lock. 

“ It is too strong ! ” said Rob. “ Hector of the Stags 
must open it ! ”• 

“But how? you cannot even let him know what 
you want ! ” 

Rob gave a smile, and going up to the door, laid 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


457 


himself against it, as close as he could stand, with his 
face upon it, and so stood silent. 

Mr. Palmer coming up with his attendants, all stood 
for a few moments in silence, wondering at Rob : he 
must be holding communication in some way with his 
father — but how ? 

Sounds began inside — first a tumbling of tools about, 
then an attack on the lock. 

“ Come ! come ! this won’t do ! ” said Mr. Palmer, 
approaching the door. 

“ Prevent it then,” said the chief. “ Do what you 
will you cannot make him hear you, and as you have 
put the door between you, he cannot see you ! If you 
do not open it, he will ! ” 

“Run,” said Mr. Palmer to the butler; “you will 
find the key on my table ! I don’t want the lock 
ruined ! ” 

But there was no stopping the thing! Before the 
butler came back, the lock fell, the door opened, and 
out came Hector, wiping his brow with his sleeve, and 
looking as if he enjoyed the fun. 

The keepers darted forward. 

“ Stand off ! ” said the chief stepping between. “ I 
don’t want to hurt you, but if you attempt to lay hands 
on him, I will.” 

One of the men dodged round, and laid hold of Hec- 
tor from behind ; the other made a move towards him 
in front. Hector stood motionless for an instant, 
watching his chief, but when he saw him knock down 
the man before him, he had his own assailant by the 
throat in an instant, gave him a shake, and threw him 
beside his companion. 

“You shall suffer for this, Macruadh!” cried Mr. 
Palmer coming closer up to him, and speaking in a low, 


458 


what’s mine’s mine. 


determined tone, carrying a conviction of unchangeable- 
ness. 

“ Better leave what may not be worse alone 1 ” re- 
turned the chief. “ It is of no use telling you how 
soYry I am to have to make myself disagreeable to you ; 
but I give you fair warning that I will accept no refusal 
of the hand of your daughter from any but herself. As 
you have chosen to break with me, I accept your decla- 
ration of war, and tell you plainly I will do all I can 
to win your daughter, never asking your leave in respect 
of anything I may think it well to do. You will find 
there are stronger forces in the world than money. 
Henceforward I hold myself clear of any personal ob- 
ligation to you except as Mercy’s father and my 
enemy.” 

From very rage Mr. Palmer w'as incapable of answer- 
ing him. Alister turned from him, and in his excite- 
ment mechanically followed Rob, who was turning a 
corner of the house. It was not the way to the gate, 
but Rob had seen Mercy peeping round that same cor- 
ner — anxious in truth about her father; she feared 
nothing for Alister. 

He came at once upon Mercy and Rob talking to- 
gether. Rob withdrew and joined his father a little 
way off ; they retired a few more paces, and stood 
waiting their chief’s orders. 

“ How' am I to see you again, Mercy ? ” said the chief 
hurriedly. “Can’t you think of some way? Think 
quick.” 

Now Mercy, as she sat alone at her window, had not 
unfrequently imagined the chief standing below on the 
walk, or just beyond in the belt of shrubbery; and 
now r once more in her mind’s eye suddenly seeing him 
there, she answered hurriedly, 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


459 


“ Come under my window to-night.” 

“ I do not know which it is.” 

“ You see it from the castle. I will put a candle in 
it.” 

“ What hour ? ” 

“ Any time after midnight. I will sit there till you 
come.” 

“ I will,” said the chief, and departed with his at- 
tendants. 

Mercy hastened into the house by a back door, but 
had to cross the hall to reach the stair. As she ran up, 
her father came in at the front door, saw her, and called 
to her. She went down again to meet the tempest of his 
rage which now broke upon her in gathered fury. He 
called her a treacherous, unnatural child, with every 
name he could think of as characterizing her conduct. 
Had she been to him as Regan or Goneril, he could not 
have found worse names for her. She stood pale but 
looked him in the face. Her mother came trembling 
as near as she dared, withered by her terror to almost 
twice her age. Mr. Palmer in his raging took a step 
towards Mercy as if he would strike her. Mercy did 
not move a muscle, but stood ready for the blow. Then 
love overcame her fear, and the wife and mother threw 
herself between, her arms round her husband, as if 
rather to protect him from the deed than her daughter 
from its hurt. 

“ Go to your room, Mercy,” she said. 

Mercy turned and went. She could not understand 
herself. She used to be afraid of her father when she 
knew no reason ; now that all the bad in his nature and 
breeding took form and utterance, she found herself 
calm ! But the thing that quieted her was in reality 
her sorrow that he should carry himself so wildly. 


460 


what’s mine’s mine. 


What she thought was, if the mere sense of not being in 
the wrong made one able to endure so much, what must 
not the truth’s sake enable one to bear ! She sat down 
at her window to gaze and brood. 

When her father cooled down, he was annoyed with 
himself, not that he had been unjust, but that he had 
behaved with so little dignity. With brows black as 
evil, he sat degraded in his own eyes, resenting the 
degradation on his daughter. Every time he thought 
of her, fresh rage arose in his heart. He had been 
proud of his family -autocracy. So seldom had it 
been necessary to enforce his authority, that he never 
doubted his wishes had but to be known to be obeyed. 
Born tyrannical, the characterless submission of his wife 
had nourished the tyrannical in him. Now all at once, 
a daughter, the ugly one, from whom no credit was to 
be looked for, dared to defy him for a clown figuring in 
a worn-out rag of chieftainship — the musty fiction of 
a clan of half a dozen shepherds, crofters, weavers and 
shoemakers, not the shadow of a gentleman among 
them ! — a man who ate brose, went with bare knees, 
worked like any hind, and did not dare offend his rela- 
tions by calling his paltry farm his own ! — for the sake 
of such a fellow, with a Highland twang that dis- 
gusted his fastidious ear, his own daughter made a 
mock of his authority, treated him as a nobody ! In 
his own house she had risen against him, and betrayed 
him to the insults of his enemy ! His conscious impor- 
tance, partly from doubt in itself, boiled and fumed, 
bubbled and steamed in the caldron of his angry brain. 
Not one, but many suns would go down upon such a 
wrath ! 

“ I wish I might never set eyes on the girl again ! ” 
he said to his wife. “ A small enough loss the sight of 


MR. PALMER STILL RELENTLESS. 


461 


her would be, the ugly, common-looking thing ! I beg 
you will save me from it in future as much as you can. 
She makes me feel as if I should go out of my mind ! so 
calm, forsooth ! so meek! so self sufficient ! oh! quite a 
saint ! — and so strong-minded ! — quite equal to throw- 
ing her father over for a fellow she never saw till a 
year ago ! ” 

“ She shall have her dinner sent up to her as usual 
now!” answered his wife with a sigh. “But, really, 
Peregrine, my love, you must compose yourself ! Love 
has driven many a woman to extremes ! ” 

“ Love ! Why should she love such a fellow ? I 
see nothing in him to love! Why should she love 
him? Tell me that! Give me one good reason for 
her folly, and I will forgive her — do anything for her ! 
— anything but let her have the rascal ! That I will 
not! Take for your son-in-law an ape that loathes 
your money, calls it filthy lucre — and means it ! Not 
if I can help it ! — Don’t let me see her ! I shall come 
to hate her ! and that I would rather not ; a man must 
love and cherish his own flesh ! I must go away, I 
mus t ! — to get rid of the hateful face of the minx, with 
its self-righteous, injured look staring at you ! ” 

“You can’t suppose that I shall be able to prevent 
her from seeing him ! ” 

“ Lock her up, in the coal-hole — bury her if you like ! 
I shall never ask what you have done with her ! Never 
to see her again is all I care about ! ” 

“ Ah, if she were really dead, you would want to see 
her again — after a while ! ” 

“ I wish then she was dead, that I might want to see 
her again ! It won’t be sooner ! Ten times rather than 
know her married to that beast, I would see her dead 
and buried ! ” 


462 


what’s mine’s mine. 


The mother held her peace, lie did not mean it, she 
said to herself. It was only his anger ! But he did 
mean it ; at that moment, he would with joy have heard 
the earth fall on her coffin. 

Notwithstanding her faculty for shutting out the pain- 
ful, her persistent self-assuring that it would blow over, 
and her confidence that things would by and by resume 
their course, Mrs. Palmer was in those days very un- 
happy. The former quiet once restored, she would take 
Mercy in hand, and reasoning with her, soon persuade 
her to what she pleased ! It was her husband’s severity 
that had brought it to this ! 

The accomplice of her husband, she did not under- 
stand that influence works only between such as inhabit 
the same spiritual sphere : her daughter had been lifted 
into a region above all the arguments of her mother in 
their life-poverty and baseness of reach. 


CHAPTER XLIV. 


MIDNIGHT, 



ERCY sat alone but not lonely at her window. 


A joy in her heart made her independent of 
human intercourse. Life at the moment was livable 
without it, for there was no bar between her and her lover. 

The evening drew on. They sent her food. She 
forgot to eat it, and sat looking, till the lines of the 
horizon seemed grown into her mind like an etching, 
She watched the slow dusk swell and gather — with 
such delicate, soft-blending gradations in the birth of 
night as Edwin Waugh alone can seize and word-paint. 
Through all its fine evanescent change of thought and 
feeling she watched unconsciously ; and the growth, 
death, and burial of that twilight were ever after a sub- 
stratum to all the sadness and all the hope that visited 
her. Through palest eastern rose, through silvery gold 
and golden green and brown, the daylight passed into 
the shadow of the light, and the stars, like hope in de- 
spair, began to show themselves where they always 
were, and the night came on, and deeper and deeper 
sank the silence. Household sound expired and no 
step came near her door. Her father had given orders 
and was obeyed. Christina had stolen indeed from her 
own room and listened at hers, but hearing nor sound 
nor motion, had concluded it better for Mercy as well 
as safer for herself to return. So she sat the sole wake- 
ful thing in the house, for even her father slept. 


463 


464 


what’s mine’s mine. 


The earth had grown vague and dim, looking as it 
must look to the dead. Its oppressive solidity, its ob- 
trusive hereness , dissolved in the dark, it left the soul 
to live its own life. She could still trace the meeting 
of earth and sky, each the evidence of the other, but 
the earth was content to be and not assert the sky, and 
lived only in the points of light that dotted its vaulted 
quiet. Sound itself seemed asleep, and filling the air 
with the repose of its slumber. Absolute silence the 
soul cannot grasp ; therefore deepest silence seems ever, 
in Wordsworth’s lovely phrase, wandering into sound, 
for silence is but the thin shadow of harmony — say 
rather creation’s ear agajDe for sound, the waiting ma- 
trix of interwoven melodies, the sphere-bowl standing 
empty for the wine of the spirit. There may be yet 
another reason beyond its too great depth or height or 
strength, why we should be deaf to the spheral music ; 
it may be that the absolute perfection of its harmony 
take to our ears but the shape of silence. 

Content and patient, Mercy sat watching. 

It was just past midnight, but she had not yet 
lighted a candle, when something struck the window as 
with the soft blow of a moth’s wing. Her heart gave 
a great leap. She listened breathless. Nothing fol- 
lowed. It must surely have been some flying niglit- 
thin g, though too late in the year for a moth ! 

It came again! She dared not speak. She softly 
opened the window. The darkness had thinned on the 
horizon, and the half-moon was lifting a corner above 
the edge of the world. Something in the shrubbery 
answered her shine, and without rustle of branch, quiet 
as a ghost, the chief stepped into the open space. 
Mercy leaned towards him and said, 

“ Hush ! speak low.” 


MIDNIGHT. 


465 


“ There is no need to say much. I come only to tell 
you that, as man may, I am with you always.” 

“ How quietly you came ! I did not hear a sound ! ” 
“ I have been two hours here in the shrubbery.” 

“ And I not to suspect it ! You might have given 
me some hint ! A very small one would have been 
enough ! Why did you not let me know ? ” 

“ It was not your hour ; it is twelve but now ; the 
moon comes to say so. I came for the luxury of expect- 
ation and the delight of knowing you better attended 
than you thought : you knew me with you in spirit ; I 
was with you in the body too ! ” 

“ My chief ! ” she said softly. “ I shall always find 
you nearer and better than I was able to think ! I know 
I do not know how good you are.” 

“ I am good towards you, Mercy ! I love you ! ” A 
long silence, save of shining eyes, followed. 

“ We are waiting for God ! ” said Alister at length. 
“Waiting is loving,” answered Mercy. 

She leaned out, looking down to her heaven. 

The moon had been climbing the sky, veiled in a lit- 
tle cloud. It vanished and her light fell on the chief. 

“ Have you been to a ball ? ” said Mercy. 

“ No, Mercy. I doubt if there will be any dancing 
more in Strathruadh ! ” 

“Then why are you hTcourt dress?” 

“ When should a Celt, who of all the world loves 
radiance and color, put on his gay attire ? For the 
multitude, or for the one ? ” 

“ Thank you ! I suppose that is a compliment ! But 
after your love, everything fine seems only natural ! ” 

“ In love there are no compliments ; truth only walks 
the sacred path between the two doors. I will love you 
as my father loved my mother and loves her still.” 


466 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I do like to see you shining ! It was kind of you 
to dress for the moon and me ! ” 

“ Who ever loves the truth must love shining things ! 
God is the father of lights, even of the lights hid in the 
dark earth — sapphires and rubies, and all the families 
of splendor.” 

“ I shall always see you like that ! ” said Mercy. 

“ There is one thing I want to say to you, Mercy : — 
you will not think me indifferent however long I may be 
in proposing a definite plan for our future ! We must 
wait upon God ! ” 

“ I shall think nothing you would not have me think. 
A little while ago I might have dreamed anything, for 
I was fast asleep. I was dead till you waked me. If I 
were what girls call in love , I should be impatient to be 
with you ; but I love you much more than that, and do 
not need to be always with you. You have made me 
able to think, and I can think about you ! I was but a 
child, and you made a woman of me ! ” 

“ God and Ian did,” said Alister. 

“ Yes, but through you, and I want to be worthy of 
you. A woman to whom a man’s love was so little 
comfort that she pined away and died because she could 
not be married to him, would not be a wife worthy of 
my chief ! ” 

“ Then you will always trust me ? ” 

“ I will. When one really knows another, then all is 
safe ! ” 

“ How many people do you know ? ” asked the chief. 

She thought a moment, and with a little laugh, iv- 
plied, 

“ You.” 

“ Pardon me, Mercy, but I do want to know how 
your father treats you ! ” 


MIDNIGHT. 


467 


“We will not talk about him, please. He is my 
father ! — and so far yours that you are bound to make 
what excuse you can for him.” 

“ That I am bound to do, if he were no father to either 
of us. It is what God is always doing for us ! — only 
he will never let us off.” 

“ He has had no one to teach him, Alister ! and has 
always been rich, and accustomed to have his own way ! 
I begin to think the punishment of making money in a 
wrong way is to be prosperous in it ! ” 

“ I am sure you are right ! But will you be able to 
bear poverty, Mercy ? ” 

“ Yes,” she answered, but so carelessly that she 
seemed to speak without having thought. 

“ You do not know what poverty means ! ” rejoined 
Alister. “We may have to endure much for our 
people ! ” 

“ It means you any way, does it not ? If you and 
poverty come together, welcome you and your friend ! 
— I see I must confess a thing ! Do you remember tell- 
ing me to read Julius Ccesar f ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Do you remember how Portia gave herself a wound, 
that she might prove to her husband she was able to 
keep a secret ? ” 

“ Yes, surely ! ” 

“ I have my meals in my room now, so I can do as I 
please, and I never eat the nice things dear mother 
always sends me, but potatoes and porridge and bread 
and milk.” 

“ What is that for, Mercy ? ” 

“ To show you I am worthy of being poor — able at 
least to be poor. I have not once tasted anything very 
nice since the letter that made my father so angry.” 


468 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ You darling ! ” 

Of all men a highlander understands independence of 
the kind of food. 

“ But,” continued Alister, “ you need not go on with 
it ; I am quite convinced ; and we must take with 
thanksgiving what God gives us. Besides, you have to 
grow yet ! ” 

“ Alister ! and me like a May-pole ! ” 

“You are tall enough, but we are creatures of three 
dimensions, and need more than height. You must eat, 
or you will certainly be ill ! ” 

“ Oh, I eat ! But just as you please ! Only, it 
wouldn’t do me the least harm so long as you didn’t 
mind ! It was as much to prove to myself I could, as 
to you ! But don’t you think it must be nearly time for 
people to wake from their first sleep ? ” 

The same instant there was a little noise — like a sob. 
Mercy started, and when she looked again Alister had 
vanished — as noiselessly as he came. For a moment 
she sat afraid to move. A wind came blowing upon 
her from the window : some one had opened her door ! 
what if it were her father ! She compelled herself to 
turn her head. It was something white! — it was 
Christina ! She came to her through the shadow of the 
moonlight, put her arms round her, and pressed to her hot 
face a wet cheek. For a moment or two neither spoke. 

“ I heard every word, Mercy,” sobbed Christina. 
“Forgive me; I meant no harm; I only wanted to 
know if you were awake ; I was coming to see you.” 

“ Thank you, Chrissy ! that was good of you ! ” 

“ You are a dear ! — and so is your chief ! I am sorry 
I scared him ! It made me so miserable to hear you so 
happy I could not help it ! Would you mind forgiving 
me, dear ? ” 


MIDNIGHT. 


469 


“ I don’t mind it a bit. I am glad you should know 
how the chief loves me ! ” 

“ But you must be careful, dear ! Papa might pre- 
tend to take him for a robber, and shoot at him ! ” 

“ Oh, no, Chrissy ! he wouldn’t do that ! ” 

“ I would not be too sure ! I hadn’t an idea before 
what papa was like ! Oh what men are, and what they 
can be ! I shall never hold up my head again ! ” 

With this incoherent speech, to Mercy’s astonish- 
ment and consternation, she burst into tears. Mercy 
tried to comfort her, but did not know how. She had 
seen for some time that there was a difference in her, 
that something was the matter, and wondered whether 
she could be missing Ian, but it was merest surmise. 
Perhaps now she would tell her ! 

She was weeping like a child on her shoulder. Pres- 
ently she began to tremble. Mercy coaxed her into her 
bed, and undressing quickly, lay down beside her, and 
took her in her arms to make her warm. Before the 
morning, with many breaks of sobbing and weeping, 
Christina had told Mercy her story. 

“ I wish you would let me tell the chief ! ” she said. 
“ He would know how to comfort you.” 

“ Thank you ! ” said Christina, with not a little indig- 
nation. “ I forgot I was talking to a girl as good as 
married, who would not keep my secret any more than 
her own ! ” 

She would have risen at once to go to her own room, 
and the night that had brought such joy to Mercy 
threatened to end very sadly. She threw her arms 
round Christina’s waist, locked her hands together, and 
held her fast. 

“ Hear me, Chrissy, darling ! I am a great big huge 
brute,” she cried. “ But I was only stupid. I would 


470 


what’s mine’s mine. 


not tell a secret of yours even to Alister — not for 
worlds! If I did, he would be nearer despising me 
than I should know how to bear. I will not tell him. 
Did I ever break my word to you, Chrissy ? ” 

“No, never, Mercy ! ” responded Christina, and turn- 
ing she put her arms round her. 

“ Besides,” she went on, “ why should I go to anyone 
for counsel ? Could I have a better counsellor than 
Ian ? Is he not my friend ? Oh, he is ! he is ! he said 
so ! he said so ! ” 

The words prefaced another storm of weeping. 

“ He is going to write to me,” she sobbed, as soon as 
she could again speak. 

“ Perhaps he will love you yet, Chrissy ! ” 

“ No, no ; he will never love me that way ! For good- 
ness’ sake don’t hint at such a thing ! I should not be 
able to write a word to him, if I thought that ! I should 
feel a wolf in sheep’s clothing ! I have done with tricks 
and pretendings ! Ian shall never say to himself, ‘ I 
wish* I had not trusted that girl! I thought she was 
going to be honest ! But what’s bred in the bone — ! ’ 
I declare, Mercy, I should blush myself out of being to 
learn he thought of me like that ! I mean to be worthy 
of his friendship ! His friendship is better than any 
other man’s love ! I will be worthy of it ! ” 

The poor girl burst again into tears — not so bitter as 
before, and ended them all at once with a kiss to Mercy. 

“ For his sake,” she said, “ I am going to take care of 
Alister and you ! ” 

“ Thank you ! thank you, Chrissy ! only you must 
not do anything to offend papa ! It is hard enough on 
him as it is ! I cannot give up the chief to please him, 
for he has been a father to my better self ; but we must 
do nothing to trouble him that we can help ! ” 


CHAPTER XLV. 


SOMETHING STRANGE, 


LISTER did not feel inclined to go home. The 



-LA. night was more like Mercy, and he lingered with 
the night, inhabiting the dream that it was Mercy’s 
house, and she in the next room. He turned into the 
castle, climbed the broken steps, and sat on the corner 
of the wall, the blank hill before him, asleep standing, 
with the New House on its shoulder, and the moonlight 
reflected from Mercy’s window under which he had so 
lately stood. He sat for an hour, and when he came 
down, was as much disinclined to go home as before : 
he could not rest in his chamber, with no Ian on the 
other side of its wall ! He went straying down the 
road, into the valley, along the burn-side, up the steep 
beyond it, and away to the hill-farm and the tomb. 

The moon was with him all the way, but she seemed 
thinking to herself rather than talking to him. Why 
should the strange, burnt-out old cinder of a satellite 
be the star of lovers ? The answer lies hid, I suspect, 
in the mysteries of light reflected. 

He wandered along, careless of time, of moonset, 
star-shine, or Sunrise, brooding on many things in the 
rayless radiance of his love, and by the time he reached 
the tomb, was weary with excitement and lack of sleep. 

Taking the key from where it was cunningly hidden, 
he unlocked the door and entered. He started back 
at sight of a gray haired old man, seated on one of the 


471 


472 


what’s mine’s mine. 


stone chairs, and leaning sadly over the fireless hearth : 
it must be his uncle ! The same moment he saw it was a 
ray from the sinking moon, entering by the small, deej) 
window, and shining feebly on the chair. He struck a 
light, kindled the peats on the hearth, and went for water. 
Returning from the well, he found the house dark as be- 
fore ; and there was the old man again, cowering over the 
extinguished fire ! The idea lasted but a moment ; once 
more the level light of the moon lay cold and gray 
upon the stone-chair ! He tried to laugh at his fanci- 
fulness, but did not quite succeed. Several times on 
the way up, he had thought of his old uncle : this must 
have given the shape to the moonlight and the stone. 
He made several attempts to recall the illusion, but in 
vain, re-lighted the fire, and put on the kettle. Going 
then for a book to read till the water boiled, he remem- 
bered a letter which, in the excitement of the after- 
noon, he had put in his pocket unread, and forgotten. 
It was from the family lawyer in Glasgow, informing 
him that the bank in which his uncle had deposited the 
proceeds of his sale of the land, was in a state of ab- 
solute and irrecoverable collapse ; there was not the 
slightest hope of retrieving any portion of the wreck. 

Alister did not jump up and pace the room in the 
rage of disappointment; neither did he sit as one 
stunned and forlorn of sense. He felt some bitterness 
in the loss of the hope of making up to his people for 
his uncle’s wrong; but it was clear tha>t if God had 
cared for his having the money, he would have cared 
that he should have it. Here was an opportunity for 
absolute faith and contentment in the will that looks 
after all our affairs, the small as well as the great. 

Those who think their affairs too insignificant for 
God’s regard, will justify themselves in lying crushed 


SOMETHING STRANGE. 


473 


under their seeming ruin. Either we live in the heart 
of an eternal thought, or we are the product and sport 
of that which is lower than we. 

“ It was evil money ! ” said the chief to himself ; “ it 
was the sale of a birthright for a mess of pottage ! I 
would have turned it back into the right channel, the 
good of my people ! but after all, what can money do ? 
It was discontent with poverty that began the ruin of 
the highlands! If the heads of the people had but 
lived, pure, active, sober, unostentatious lives, content to 
be poor, poverty would never have overwhelmed them ! 
Therewith it dawned upon Alister how, when he longed 
to help his people, his thoughts had always turned, not 
to God first ; but to the money his uncle had left him. 
He had trusted in a fancy — no less a fancy when in his 
uncle’s hands than when cast into the quicksand of the 
bank ; for trust in money that is, is no less vain, and is 
farther from redress, than trust in money that is not. 
In God alone can trust repose. His heart had been so 
faithless that he did not know it was! He thought 
he loved God as the first and last, the beginning, 
middle, and end of all things, and he had been trusting, 
not in God, but in uncertain riches, that is in vile 
mammon ! It was a painful and humiliating discovery. 
“ It was well,” he said, “ that my false deity should be 
taken from me ! For my idolatry perhaps, a good gift 
has failed to reach my people ! I must be more to them 
than ever, to make up to them for their loss with better 
than money ! ” 

He fell on his knees, and thanked God for the wind 
that had blown cold through his spirit, and slain at 
least one evil thing ; when he rose, all that was left of 
his trouble was a lump in his throat, which melted 
away as he walked home through the morning air on 


474 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the hills. For he could not delay; he must let his 
mother know their trouble, and, as one who had already 
received help from on high, help her to bear it ! If the 
messenger of Satan had buffeted him, he had but 
broken a way for strength ! 

But at first he could not enjoy as he was wont the 
glory of the morning. It troubled him. Would a sin- 
gle note in the song of the sons of the morning fail 
because God did or would not do a thing ? Could God 
deserve less than perfect thanks from any one of his 
creatures ? That man could not know God who thanked 
him but for what men call good things, nor took the 
evil as from the same love ! He scorned himself, and 
lifted up his heart to God. As he reached the brow of 
his last descent, the sun rose, and with it his soul arose 
and shone, for its light was come, and the glory of the 
Lord was risen upon it. “ Let God,” he said, “ take 
from us what he will : himself he can only give ! ” 
Joyful he went down the hill. God was, and all was 
well! 


CHAPTER XLVL 


THE POWER OF DARKNESS. 

H E found his mother at breakfast, wondering what 
had become of him. 

“Are you equal to a bit of bad news, mother?” he 
asked with a smile. 

The mother’s thoughts flew instantly to Ian. 

“ Oh, it’s nothing about Ian ! ” said the chief, answer- 
ing her look. 

Its expression changed ; she hoped now it was some 
fresh obstacle between him and Mercy. 

“Ho, mother, it is not that either!” said Alister, 
again answering her look — with a sad one of his own, 
for the lack of his mother’s sympathy was the sorest 
trouble he had. “ It is only that uncle’s money is gone 
— all gone.” 

She sat silent for a moment, gave a little sigh, and 
said, 

“Well, it will all be over soon! In the meantime 
things are no worse than they were! His will be 
done!” 

“ I should have liked to make a few friends with the 
mammon of unrighteousness before we were turned out 
naked ! ” 

“We shall have plenty,” answered the mother 
“ — God himself, and a few beside ! If you could make 
friends with the mammon, you can make friends with- 
out it ! ” 


475 


476 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“Yes, that is happily true ! Ian says it was only a 
lesson for the wise and prudent with money in their 
pockets — a lesson suited to their limited reception ! ” 

As they spoke, Nancy entered. 

“Please, laird,” she said, “ Donal shoemaker is want- 
ing to see you.” 

“ Tell him to come in,” answered the chief. 

Donal entered and stood up by the door, with his 
bonnet under his arm — a little man with puckered face, 
the puckers radiating from or centering in the mouth, 
which he seemed to untie like a money-bag, and pull 
open by means of a smile, before he began to speak. 
The chief shook hands with him, and asked how he 
could serve him. 

“ It will not be to your pleasure to know, Macruadh,” 
said Donal, humbly declining to sit, “that I have 
received this day notice to quit my house and 
garden ! ” 

The house was a turf-cottage, and the garden might 
grow two bushels and a half of potatoes. 

“ Are you far behind with your rent ? ” 

“ Not a quarter, Macruadh.” 

“ Then what does it mean ? ” 

“ It means, sir, that Strathruadh is to be given to the 
red deer, and the son of man have nowhere to lay his 
head. I am the first at your door with my sorrow, but 
before the day is over you will have ” 

Here he named four or five who had received like 
notice to quit. 

“ It is a sad business ! ” said the chief sorrowfully. 

“ Is it law, sir ? ” 

“ It is not easy to say what is law, Donal ; certainly 
it is not gospel ! As a matter of course you will not 
be without shelter, so long as I may call stone or turf 


THE POWER OF DARKNESS. 


477 


mine, but things are looking bad ! Things as well as 
souls are in God’s hands however ! ” 

“ I learn from the new men on the hills,” resumed 
Doual, “ that the new lairds have conspired to exter- 
minate us. They have discovered, apparently, that the 
earth was not made for man, but for rich men and 
beasts ! ” Here the little man paused, and his insignifi- 
cant face grew in expression grand. “ But the day of 
the Lord will come,” he went on, “ as a thief in the 
night. Vengeance is his, and he will know where to 
give many stripes, and where few. — What would you 
have us do, laird ? ” 

“ I will go with you to the village.” 

“ Ho, if you please, sir ! Better men will be at your 
door presently to put the same question, for they will 
do nothing without the Macruadh. We are no more on 
your land, great is our sorrow, chief, but we are of your 
blood, you are our lord, and your will is ours. You 
have been a nursing father to us, Macruadh ! ” 

“ I would fain be ! ” answered the chief. 

“ They will want to know whether these strangers have 
the right to turn us out ; and if they have not the right 
to disseize, whether we have not the right to resist. If 
you would have us fight, and will head us, we will fall 
to a man — for fall we must ; we cannot think to stand 
before the redcoats.” 

“ Ho, no, Donal ! It is not a question of the truth ; 
that we should be bound to die for, of course. It is only 
our rights that are concerned, and they are not worth 
dying for. That would be mere pride, and denial of 
God who is fighting for us. At least so it seems at 
the moment to me ! ” 

“ Some of us would fain fight and have done with it, 


478 


what’s mine’s mine. 


But the chief could not help smiling with pleasure at 
the little man’s warlike readiness : he knew it was no 
empty boast ; what there was of him was good stuff. 

“You have a wife and children, Donal!” he said; 
“ what would become of them if you fell ? ” 

“ My sister was turned out in the cold spring,” an- 
swered Donal, “ and died in Glencalvu ! It would be 
better to die together ! ” 

“ But, Donal, none of yours will die of cold, and I 
can’t let you fight, because the wives and children will 
all come on my hands, and I shall have too many for 
my meal! No, we must not fight. We may have a 
right to fight, I do not know ; but I am sure we have 
at least the right to abstain from it.” 

“ Will the law not help us, Macruadh ? ” 

“The law is such a slow coach! our enemies are so 
rich ! and the lawyers have little love of righteousness ! 
Most of them would see the dust on our heads to have 
the picking of our bones ! Stick nor stone would be 
left us, before anything came of it ! ” 

“ But, sir,” said Donal, “ is it the part of brave men to 
give up their rights ? ” 

“No man can take from us our rights,” answered the 
chief, “ but any man rich enough may keep us from 
getting any good of them. I say again we are not 
bound to insist on our rights. We may decline to do 
so, and that way leave them to God to look after for 
us ! ” 

“ God does not always give men their rights, sir ! I 
don’t believe he cares about our small matters ! ” 
“Nothing that God does not care about can be worth 
our caring about. But, Donal, how dare you say as 
you do ? Have you lived to all eternity ? How do you 
know what you say? God does care for our rights. A 


THE POWER OF DARKNESS. 


479 


day is coming, as you have just said, when he will judge 
the oppressors of their brethren.” 

“ We shall be all dead and buried Ions* before then ! ” 

“ As he pleases, Donal ! He is iny chief. I will have 
what he wills, not what I should like ! A thousand 
years I will wait for my rights if he chooses. I will 
trust him to do splendidly for me. No ; 1 will have no 
other way than my chief’s! He will set everything 
straight ! ” 

“ You must be right, sir! I only can’t help wishing 
for the old times, when a man could strike a blow for 
himself ! ” 

With all who came Alister held similar talk; for 
though they were not all so warlike as the cobbler, they 
keenly felt the wrong that was done them, and would 
mostly, but for a doubt of its rectitude, have opposed 
force with force. It would at least bring their case 
before the country ! 

“ The case is before a higher tribunal,” answered the 
laird ; “ and one’s country is no incarnation of justice! 
How could she be, made up mostly of such as do not 
love fair play except in the abstract, or for themselves! 
The wise thing is to submit to wrong.” 

It is in our own thoughts and our own actions, that 
we have first to stand up for the right ; our business is 
not to protect ourselves from our neighbor’s wrong, 
but our neighbor from our wrong. This is to slay evil ; 
the other is to make it multiply. A man who would 
pull out even a mote from his brother’s eye, must first 
pull out the beam from his own eye, must be righteous 
against his own selfishness. That is the only way to 
wound the root of evil. He who teaches his neighbor 
to insist on his rights, is not a teacher of righteousness. 
He who, by fulfilling his own duties, teaches his neigh- 


480 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


bor to give every man the fair play he owes him, is a 
fellow-worker with God. 

But although not a few of the villagers spoke in 
wrath, and counselled resistance, not one of them re- 
joiced in the anticipation of disorder. Heartily did 
Rob of the Angels counsel peace, but his words had the 
less force that he was puny in person, and, although 
capable of great endurance, unnoted for deeds of 
strength. Evil birds carried the words of natural and 
righteous anger to the ears of the new laird ; no good 
birds bore the words of appeasement : he concluded 
after his kind that their chief countenanced a determined 
resistance. 

On all sides the horizon was dark about the remnant 
of Clanruadh. Poorly as they lived in Strathruadh, 
they knew no place else where they could live at all. 
Separated, and so disabled from making common cause 
against want, they must perish ! But their horizon was 
not heaven, and God was beyond it. 

It was a great comfort to the chief that in the matter 
of his clan his mother agreed with him altogether ; to 
the last penny of their having they must help their peo- 
ple ! Those who feel as if the land were their own, do 
fearful wrongs to their own souls ! What grandest 
opportunities of growing divine they lose ! Instead of 
being man-nobles, leading a sumptuous life until it no 
longer looks sumptuous, they might be God-nobles — 
saviours of men yielding themselves to and for their 
brethren ! What friends might they not make with the 
mammon of unrighteousness, instead of passing hence 
into a region where no doors, no arms will be open to 
them ! Things are ours that we may use them for all — 
sometimes that we may sacrifice them. God had but 
one precious thing, and he gave that ! 


THE POWER OF DARKNESS. 


481 


The chief, although he saw that the proceedings of 
Mr. Palmer and Mr. Smith must have been determined 
upon while his relation to Mercy was yet undeclared, 
could not help imagining how differently it might have 
gone with his people, were he married to Mercy, and in 
a good understanding with her father. Had he indeed 
crippled his reach toward men by the narrowness of his 
conscience toward God ? So long as he did what seemed 
right, he must regret no consequences, even for the sake 
of others ! God would mind others as well as him ! 
Every sequence of right, even to the sword and fire, 
are God’s care ; he will justify himself in the eyes of 
the true, nor heed the judgment of the false. 

One thins was clear — that it would do but harm to 
beg of Mr. Palmer any pity for his people : it would but 
give zest to his rejoicing in iniquity ! Something must 
be determined, and speedily, for winter was at hand. 

The Macruadh had to consider not only the imme- 
diate accommodation of the ejected, but how they were 
to be maintained. Such was his difficulty that he began 
to long for such news from Ian as would justify an 
exodus from their own country, not the less a land of 
bondage, to a home in the wilderness. But ah, what 
would then the land of his fathers without its people be 
to him ! It would be no more worthy the name of 
land, no longer fit to be called a possession ! He knew 
then that the true love of the land is one with the love 
of its people. To live on it after they were gone, would 
be like making a home of the family mausoleum. The 
rich “ pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the 
poor,” but what would any land become without the 
poor in it ? The poor are blessed because by their 
poverty they are open to divine influences ; they are 
the buckets set out to catch the rain of heaven ; they 


482 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


arc the salt of the earth ! The poor are to be always 
with a nation for its best blessing, or for its condemna- 
tion and ruin. The chief saw the valleys of his country 
desolate of the men readiest and ablest to fight her bat- 
tles. For the sake of greedy, low-minded men, the cry 
of the war-pipes would be heard no more, or would 
sound in vain among the manless rocks ; from sheilin, 
cottage, or claclian would spring no kilted warriors 
with battle response ! The red deer and the big sheep 
had taken the place of men over many miles upon miles 
of mountain and strath and moor ! His heart bled for 
the sufferings and wrongs of those whose ancestors died 
to keep the country free which would expel their pro- 
geny. But even then the vengeance had begun to 
gather, though our generation has not yet seen it break. 
It must be that offences come ; but woe unto them by 
whom they come ! 


CHAPTER XL VII. 


THE NEW STANCE. 

T HE Macruadh cast his mind’s, and his body’s eye 
too, upon the small strip of ground on the west 
side of the castle-ridge, between it and the tiny tribu- 
tary of the strath burn, forming here the boundary 
between the lands of the two lairds. The slope of the 
ridge on this side was not so steep, and before the 
rock sank into the deep alluvial soil of the valley, it 
became for a few yards nearly level — sufficiently so, 
with a little smoothing and raising, to serve for a foun- 
dation. In front was a narrow but rich piece of ground, 
the bank of the little brook. Before many days were 
over, men were at work there, in full sight of the upper 
windows of the New House. It was not at first clear 
what they were about ; but soon began to rise, plain 
enough, the walls of cottages, some of stone, and some 
of turf ; and Mr. Palmer saw a new village already in 
process of construction, to take the place of that about 
to be destroyed ! The enemy had but moved his camp, 
to pitch it under his very walls ! It filled him with the 
rage of defeat. The poor man who scorned him was 
going to be too much for him ! Not yet was he any 
nearer to being placed alone in the midst of the earth. 
He thought to have rid himself of all those hateful 
faces, full of their chief’s contempt, he imagined, and 
ever eying him as an intruder on his own land ; but in- 
stead of getting rid of them, here was their filthy little 
4S3 


484 


what’s mine’s mine. 


liamlet of hovels growing like a fungus just under his 
nose, put there expressly to spite him! Thinking to 
destroy it, he had merely sent for it ! When the wind 
was in the east, the smoke of their miserable cabins 
would be blown in at his dining-room windows ! It was 
useless to expostulate ! That he would not like it was 
of course the chief’s first reason for choosing that one 
spot as the site of his new rookery ! The fellow had 
stolen a march upon him ! And what had he done be- 
yond what was absolutely necessary for the improve- 
ment of his property ! The people were in his way, and 
he only wanted to get rid of them! And here their 
chief had brought them almost into his garden ! and 
doubtless, if his land had come near enough, he 
would have built his sty at the very gate of his 
shrubbery ! The fellow could not like having them 
so near himself! and what benefit could it be sup- 
posed to do the miserable wretches! it could but 
encourage their dirty pride and laziness ! For their land- 
lord, it was only helping him to keep up the foolish fiction 
of his chieftainship ! In a w r ord the Macruadh was so 
plainly in the wrong, that but for the state of things 
between them, he would have tried expostulation ! It 
was impossible when the hope of bringing him to terms 
was at the root of his whole behavior ! He would find 
he was mistaken ! 

He talked of the thing openly, and let his whole 
household see how annoying is was to him. He had 
not the least doubt that it was done purely to irritate 
him. Christina ventured the suggestion that Mr. Smith 
and not the chief was the author of the inconvenience. 
What did that matter ! he returned. What right had 
the chief, as she called him, to interfere between a 
landlord and his tenants ! Christina hinted that, being 


THE NEW STANCE. 


485 


evicted by their landlord, they ceased to be his tenants, 
and even were he not their chief, he could not be said 
to interfere when he gave his aid to the destitute. 
Thereupon he burst at her in a way that terrified her : 
she had never even been checked by him before, had 
often been impertinent to him without rebuke. The 
man seemed entirely changed, but in truth he was no 
whit changed. Things had occurred capable of bringing 
out the facts of his nature. Her mother, who had not 
dared to speak at the time, expostulated with her after- 
wards. 

“ Why should papa never be told the truth ? ” she 
answered. 

The mother was on the point of replying, “ Because 
he will not hear it,” but saw she owed it to her husband 
not to say so to his child. 

“Christina,” she returned, “no good will ever 
come to the child who does not respect her own 
father ! ” 

Mercy said to herself, “ It is not to annoy my father 
he does it, but to do what he can for his people. He 
does not even know how unpleasant it is to my father 
to have them so near ! It must be one of the punish- 
ments of riches that they make the sight of poverty so 
disagreeable ! To luxury, poverty is a living reproach.” 
She longed to see Alister that she might learn if any- 
thing might be done to mitigate the offence. But she 
dared not propose the thing to her father ; he would 
never consent to use her influence ! Perhaps her mother 
might consent to try it ! 

She suggested the thing therefore, saying she was 
certain Alister would do nothing for the sake of annoy- 
ing her father, and that she did not believe he had any 

O 7 * 

idea how annoying this thing was to him : if her mother 


486 


what’s mine’s mine. 


would contrive her going to see him, she could repre- 
sent the thing to the chief ! 

Mrs. Palmer was of Mercy’s opinion regarding the 
purity of Alister’s intent, and promised to think the 
matter over. The next night her husband was going 
to spend at Mr. Smith’s : the project might be carried 
out in safety ! The thing should be done ! They would 
go together, in the hope of persuading the chief to 
change the site of his village ! 

When it was dark they walked to the cottage, and 
knocking at the door, asked Nancy if the chief were at 
home. The girl invited them to enter, though not 
with her usual cordiality ; but Mrs. Palmer declined, 
requesting her to let the chief \now they were there, 
desirous of a word with him. 

Alister was at the door in a moment, and wanted 
them to go in and see his mother, but a moment’s re- 
flection made him glad of their refusal. 

“ I am so sorry for all that has happened ! ” said Mrs. 
Palmer. “You know I can have had nothing to do 
with it ! There is not a man I should like for a son-in- 
law better than yourself, Macruadh ; but I am helpless.” 

“I quite understand,” replied the chief, “and thank 
you heartily for your kindness. Is there anything I 
can do for you ? ” 

“Mercy has something she wants to speak to you 
about.” 

“ It was so good of you to bring her ! — What is it, 
Mercy ? ” 

Without the least hesitation, Mercy told him her 
father’s fancy that he was building the new village to 
spite him, seeing it could not be a pleasure to have the 
smoke from its chimneys blowing in at its doors and 
windows as often as the wind was from the sea. 


THE NEW STANCE. 


487 


“ I am sorry but not surprised your father should think 
so, Mercy. To trouble him is as much against my feel- 
ings as interests. And certainly it is for no conven- 
ience or comfort to ourselves, that my mother and I have 
determined on having the village immediately below 
us.” 

“ I thought,” said Mercy, “ that if you knew how it 
vexes papa, you would — But I am afraid it may be for 
some reason that cannot be helped ! ” 

“ Indeed it is ; I am afraid it cannot be helped ! I 
must think of my people ! You see, if I put them on 
the other side of the ridge, they would be exposed to 
the east wind — and the more that every door and 
window would have to be to the east. You know your- 
selves how bitterly it blows down the strath ! Besides, 
we should there have to build over good land much too 
damp to be healthy, every foot of which will be wanted 
to feed them ! There they are on the rock. I might, 
of course, put them on the hillside, but I have no place 
so sheltered as here, and they would have no gardens. 
And then it gives me an opportunity, such as chief 
never had before, of teaching them some things I could 
not otherwise. Would it be reasonable, Mercy, to sac- 
rifice the good of so many poor people to spare one 
rich man a single annoyance, which is no hurt ? Would 
it be right ? Ought I not rather to suffer the rise of 
yet greater obstacles between you and me ? ” 

“ Yes, Alister, yes ! ” cried Mercy. “ You must not 
change anything. I am only sorry my father cannot 
be taught that you have no ill will to him in the 
thing.” 

“ I don’t think it would make much difference. He 
will never give you to me, Mercy. But be true and 
God will.” 


488 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“Would you mind letting the flag fly, Alister? I 
should have something to look at ! ” 

“ I will ; and when I want particularly to see you, I 
will haul it down. Then, if you hang a handkerchief 
from your window, I will come to you.’* 


CHAPTER XLYIII. 


THE PEAT-MOSS 



OR the first winter the Clanruadh had not much to 


-L fear — hardly more than usual : they had their 
small stores of potatoes and meal, and some a poor 
trifle of money. But “ Lady Macruadh ” was anxious 
lest the new cottages should not be quite dry and gave 
a general order that fires were to be burned in them for 
some time before they were occupied. For this pur- 
pose they must use their driest peats, and provide more 
for the winter. The available strength of the clan must 
get the fresh stock under cover before the bad weather. 

The peat-moss from which they cut their fuel, was at 
some distance from the castle, on the outskirts of the 
hill-farm. It was the nearest moss to the glen, and the 
old chief, when he parted with so much of the land, took 
care to except it, knowing well that his remaining peo- 
ple could not without it live through a winter. But 
neither his brother, the minister, who succeeded him, 
nor the present chieftain, had ever interfered to pre- 
vent the tenants on the land sold from supplying them- 
selves from the same source as before ; and this fact it 
was probably that had generated the notion that the 
chief’s people had no right in the moss, but supplied 
themselves only on sufferance. 

The report was carried to Mr. Peregrine Palmer, that 
the tenants Mr. Smith was about to eject, and who were 
in consequence affronting him with a new hamlet on 


489 


490 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the very verge of his lands, had set about providing 
themselves with a stock of fuel greatly in excess of 
what they had usually laid in for the winter ; that in 
fact they were cutting large quantities of peat, besides 
the turf for their new cottages, evidently in the fear of 
not being permitted to use the moss after ceasing to be 
tenants of Mr. Smith or Mr. Palmer. Without making 
the smallest inquiry, or suspecting for a moment that 
the proceeding might be justifiable, he determined, 
after a brief consultation with men who knew nothing 
about the matter but were ready to say anything, to put 
a stop to the supposed abuse of privilege. 

Some of the peats cut in the summer had not yet 
been removed, not having dried so well as the rest, 
and the owners of some of these, two widows, went to 
fetch them to the new village, when, as it happened, 
there was nothing else going on at the moss. 

They filled their creels, helped each other to get them 
on their backs, and set out on their weary tramp home. 
But they had scarce started when up rose two of Mr. 
Palmer’s men, who had been watching them all the 
time, cut their ropes and took their loads, emptied 
the peats into a moss-hag full of water, and threw the 
creels after them. The poor women poured out their 
wrath on the men, telling them they would go straight 
to the chief, but were answered only with mockery of 
themselves and their chief. They turned in despair, 
and with their outcry filled the hollows of the hills as 
they went, now lamenting the loss of their peats and 
their creels, raging at the wrong they had received. 
One of them, a characterless creature in the eyes of her 
neighbors, harmless, and always in want, had faith in her 
chief, for she had done nothing to make her ashamed, 
and would go to him at once ; he had always a word 


TIIE PEAT-MOSS. 


491 


and a smile and a hand-shake for her, she said. The 
other, commonly called Craftie, was unwilling : her 
character did not stand high, and she feared the face 
of the Macruadh. 

“ He does not like me ! ” said Craftie. 

“ When a woman is in trouble,” said the other, “ the 
Macruadh makes no questions. You come with me ! 
He will be glad of something to do for you.” 

In her confidence she persuaded her companion, and 
together they went to the chief. Having gathered 
courage to appear, Craftie needed none to speak. 
Where that was the call, she was never slow to respond. 

“ Craftie,” said the chief, “ is what you are telling me 
true ? ” 

“ Ask Aer,” answered Craftie, who knew that asser- 
vation on her part was not all-convincing. 

“ She speaks the truth, Macruadh,” said the other. 
“ I will take my oath to it.” 

“Your word is enough,” replied the chief, “ — as 
Craftie knew when she brought you with her.” 

“ Please, laird, it was myself brought Craftie ; she 
was not willing to come ! ” 

“ Craftie,” said the chief, “ I wish I could make a 
friend of you ! But you know I can’t ! ” 

“ I do know it, Macruadh, and I am sorry for it, 
many is the good time ! But my door never had any 
latch, and the word is out before I can think to keep it 
back ! ” 

“ And so you send another and another to back the 
first ! Ah, Craftie ! If purgatory don’t do something for 
you, then — ! ” 

“ Indeed and I hope I shall fall into it on my way 
farther, chief ! ” said Craftie, who happened to be a 
catholic. 


492 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“But now,” resumed the chief, “when will you be 
going for the rest of your peats ? ” 

“ They’re sure to be on the watch for us ; and there’s 
no saying what they mightn’t do another time ! ” was the 
indirect and hesitating answer. 

“ I will go with you.” 

“ When you please, then, chief.” 

So the next day the poor women went again, and the 
chief went with them, their guard and servant. If 
there were any on the watch, they did not appear. 
The Macruadh fished out their creels, and put them on 
a rock to dry, then helped them to fill those they had 
borrowed for the occasion. Returning, he carried now 
the one, now the other creel, so that one of the women 
was always free. The new laird met them on the road, 
and recognized with a scornful pleasure the chief bend- 
ing under his load. That was the fellow who wanted to 
be his son-in-law ! 

About this time Sercombe and Valentine came again 
to the New House. Sercombe, although he had of late 
had no encouragement from Christina, was not there- 
fore prepared to give her up, and came “ to press the 
siege.” He found the lady’s reception of him so far 
from cordial, however, that he could not but suspect some 
new adverse influence. He saw too that Mercy was in 
disgrace ; and, as Ian was gone, concluded there must 
have been something between them : had the chief been 
trying “ it on ” with Christina ? The brute was always 
getting in his way ! But some chance of serving him 
out was certain to turn up ! 

For the first suitable day, Alister had arranged an 
expedition from the village, with all the carts that could 
be got together, to bring home as many peats as horses 
and men and women could together carry. The com- 


THE PEAT-MOSS. 


493 


pany was seen setting out, and report of it carried at 
once to Mr. Palmer ; for he had set watch on the doings 
of the clan. Within half an hour he set out with the 
messenger, accompanied by Sercombe, in grim delight 
at the prospect of a row. Valentine went also, willing 
enough to see what would happen, though with no ill 
will toward the chief. They were all furnished as for 
a day’s shooting, and expected to be joined by some of 
the keepers on their way. 

The chief, in view of possible assault, had taken care 
that not one of his men should have a gun. Even 
Hector of the Stags he requested to leave his gun at- 
home. 

They went in little groups, some about the creeping 
carts, in which were the older women and younger 
children, some a good way ahead, some scattered be- 
hind, but the main body attending the chief, who 
talked to them as they went. They looked a very 
poor company, but God saw past their poverty. The 
chief himself, save in size and strength, had not a flour- 
ishing appearance. He was very thoughtful: much 
lay on his shoulders, and Ian was not there to help ! 
His clothes, all their clothes, were shabby, with a 
crumpled, blown-about look, like drifts, in their many 
faded colors, of autumnal leaves. They had about them 
all a forgotten air — looked thin and wan like a ghostly 
funeral to the second sight — as if they had walked so ^ 
long they had forgotten how to sleep, and the grave 
would not have them. Except in their chief there was 
nothing left of the martial glance and gait and show, 
once so notable in every gathering of the Clanruadh, 
when the men were all soldiers born, and the women 
were mothers, daughters, and wives of soldiers. Their 
former stately grace had vanished from the women ; they 


494 


avhat’s mine’s mine. 


were weather-worn and bowed with labor too heavy for 
their strength, too long for their endurance, they were 
weak from lack of fit human food, from lack of hope, and 
the dreariness of the outlook, the ever gray spiritual 
horizon ; they were numbed with the cold that has 
ceased to be felt, the deadening sense of life as a weight 
to be borne, not a strength to rejoice in. But they 
were not abject yet ; there was one that loved them — 
their chief and their friend. Below their level was a 
deeper depth, in which, alas, lie many of like heart and 
passions with them, trodden into the mire by Dives and 
his stewards ! 

The carts were small, with puny horses, long-tailed 
and droop-necked, in harness of more rope than leather. 
They had a look of old men, an aspect weirdly venera- 
ble, as of life and labor prolonged after due time, as of 
creatures leapt from the grave and their last sleep to 
work a little longer. Scrambling up the steep places 
they were like that rare sea-bird which unable to fly for 
shortness of wing, makes of its beak a third leg, to help 
it up the cliff : these horses seemed to make fifth legs 
of their necks and noses. The chief’s horses alone, 
always at the servic^of the clan, looked well fed, well 
kept, and strong, and the clan was proud of them. 

“ And what news is there from Ian ? ” asked an old 
man of his chief. 

“Not much news yet, but I hope for more soon. It 
will be so easy to let you all hear his letters, when we 
can meet any moment in the barn ! ” 

“ I fear he will be wanting us all to go after the rest ! ” 
said one of the women. 

“ There might be a worse thing ! ” answered her 
neighbor. 

“ A worse thing than leave the hills where we were 


THE PEAT-MOSS. 


495 


born ? — No ! there is no worse for me ! I trust in God 
I shall be buried where I grew up ! ” 

“ Then you will leave the hills sure enough ! ” said 
the chief. 

“Not so sure, Macruadh ! We shall rest in our 
graves till the resurrection ! ” said an old man. 

“ Only our bodies,” returned Alister. 

“Well, and what will my body be but myself! 
Much I would make of myself without my body ! I 
will stay with my body, and let my soul step about, 
waiting for me, and craving a shot at the stags with the 
big branches ! No, I won’t be going from my own 
strath ! ” 

“ You would not like to be left in it alone, with none 
but unfriendly Sasunnachs about you — not one of your 
own people to close your eyes ? ” 

“ Indeed it would not be pleasant ! But the winds 
would be the same ; and the hills would be same ; and 
the smell of the earth would be the same; and they 
would be our own worms that came crawling over me to 
eat me ! No ; I won’t leave the strath till I die — and 
I won’t leave it then ! ” 

“ That is very well, John ! ” said the woman ; “ but if 
you were all day with your little ones — all of them all 
day looking hunger in your face, you would think it a 
blessed country where ever it was that gave you bread 
to put in their mouths ! ” 

“ And how to keep calling this home ! ” said another. 
“ Why, it will soon be everywhere a crime to set foot 
on a hill, for frightening of the deer ! I was walking 
last month in a part of the country I did not know, 
when I came to a wall that went out of my sight, seem- 
ing to go all round a big hill. I said to myself, ‘ Is no 
poor man to climb to heaven any more ? ’ And with 


496 


what’s mine’s mine. 


that I came to a bill stuck on a post, which answered 
me ; for it said thus : ‘ Any well-dressed person, who 
will give his word not to leave the path, may have 
permission to go to the top of the hill, by apply- 
ing to — I forget the name of the doorkeeper — but 
sure, he was not of God, seeing his door was not to let 
a poor man in, but to keep him out ! ” 

“ They do well to starve us before they choke us : we 
might else fight when it come to the air to breathe ! ” 

“ Have patience, my sons,” said the chief. “ God 
will not forget us.” 

“ What better are we for that ? It would be all the 
same if he did forget us ! ” growled a young fellow 
shambling along without shoes. 

“ Shame ! shame ! ” cried several voices. “ Has not 
God given us the Macruadh ? has he not shared every- 
thing with us ? ” 

“ The best coat in the clan is on his own back ! ” mut- 
tered the lad, careless whether he were heard or not. 

“ You scoundrel ! ” cried another ; “ yours is a warmer 
one ! ” 

The chief heard all, and held his peace. It was true 
he had a better coat ! 

“ I tell you what,” said Donal shoemaker, “ if the chief 
give you the stick, not one of us will say it was more than 
you deserved ! — If he will put it into my hands, not to 
defile his own, I will take it with all my heart. Every- 
body knows you for the idlest vagabond in the village ! 
Why, the chief with his own hands works ten times as 
much ! ” 

“ That’s how he takes the bread out of my mouth — 
doing his work himself ! ” rejoined the youth, who had 
been to Glasgow, and thought he had learned a thing or 
two. 


THE PEAT-MOSS. 


497 


Here the chief recovered from his impulse to pull off 
his coat and give it him. 

“ I will make you an offer, my lad,” he said instead : 
“ come to the farm and take my place. For every fair 
day’s work, you shall have a fair day’s wages, and for 
every bit of idleness, a fair threshing. Do you agree ? ” 

The youth pretended to laugh the thing off, but 
slunk away, and was seen no more till eating time ar- 
rived, and “ Lady Macruadh’s ” well-filled baskets were 
opened. 

“ And who wouldn’t see a better coat on his chief ! ” 
cried the little tailor. “ I would clip my own to make 
lappets for his ! ” 

They reached the moss. It lay in a fold of the hills, 
desert and dreary, full of great hollows and holes 
whence the peat had been taken, now filled with water, 
black and terrible, — a land hideous by day, and at 
night full of danger and lonely horror. Here and there 
was a tuft of dry grass, a bush of heather or a few 
slender-stocked, hoary heads of cannach or cotton- 
grass ; it was a land of devoted desolation, doing noth- 
ing for itself, this bountiful store of life and warmth for 
the winter-sieged houses of the strath. Everywhere 
there stood piles of peats set up to dry, with many open- 
ings through and through, windy drains to gather and 
remove their moisture. 

They went heartily to work. They cut turf for their 
walls and peats for their fires ; they loaded the carts 
from the driest joiles, and made new piles of the fresh 
wet peats they cut. It was approaching noon ; and 
some of the old women were getting the food out of 
“ my lady’s ” baskets, when over the nearest ridge be- 
yond rose men to the number of seven, carrying guns. 
Rob of the Angels was the first to spy them. He 


498 


what’s mine’s mine. 


pointed them out to his father, and presently they two 
disappeared together. The rest went on their work, 
but the chief could see that, stooping at their labor, 
they cast upward and sidelong glances at them, reading 
hostility in their approach. Suddenly, as by common 
consent, they all ceased working, stood erect, and looked 
out like men on their guard. But the chief making 
them a sign, they resumed their labor as if they saw 
nothing. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer had laid it upon himself to act 
with becoming calmness and dignity. But it would 
amaze most people to be told how little their order is 
self-restrained, their regular conduct their own — how 
much of the savage and how little of the civilized man 
goes to form their being — how much their decent be- 
havior is owing to the moral pressure, like that of the 
atmosphere, of the laws and persons and habits and 
opinions that surround them. Witness how many, who 
seemed respectable people at home, become vulgar, self- 
indulgent, ruffianly, cruel even, in the wilder parts of the 
colonies ! No man who has not, through restraint, 
learned not to need restraint, but be as well behaved 
among savages as in society, has yet to become a true 
man. No perfection of mere civilization kills the sav- 
age in a man ; the savage is there all the time till the 
man pass through the birth from above. Till then, he 
is no certain hiding-place from the wind, no sure covert 
from the tempest. 

Mr. Palmer was in the worst of positions as to pro- 
tection against himself. Possessed of large property, 
he owed his position to evil and not to good. Not only 
had he done nothing to raise those through whom he 
made his money, but the very making of their money, 
was his plunging them deeper and deeper in poverty 


THE PEAT-MOSS. 


499 


and vice : his success was the ruin of many. Yet was 
he full of his own imagined importance — or had been 
full until now that he felt a worm at the root of his 
gourd — the contempt of one man for his wealth and 
position. Well might such a man hate such another 
— and the more that his daughter loved him ! Then the 
chiefs schemes and ways were founded on such opposite 
principles to his own that of necessity they annoyed 
him at every point, and, incapable of perceiving their 
true nature, he imagined that annoyance their origin 
and end. And now here was his enemy insolently dar- 
ing, as Mr. Palmer fully believed, to trespass in person 
on his land ! 

Add to all this, that Mr. Peregrine Palmer was here 
in a place whose remoteness heightened the pressure of 
conventional restraint, while its wildness tended to 
rouse all the old savage in him — its very look suggest- 
ing to the city-man its fitness for an unlawful deed for 
a lawful end. Persons more respectable than Mr. Palmer 
are capable of doing the most wicked and lawless things, 
when their selfish sense of their own right is upper- 
most. Witness the occasionally iniquitous judgments 
of country magistrates in their own interests — how 
they drive law even to cruelty ! 

“ Are you not aware you are trespassing on my land, 
Macruadh ? ” cried the new laird, across several holes 
full of black water which obstructed his nearer approach. 

“On the contrary, Mr. Palmer,” replied the chief, 

I am perfectly aware that I am not!” 

“You have no right to cut peats there without my 
permission ! ” 

“I beg your pardon: you have no right to stand 
where you speak the words without my permission. 
But you are quite welcome, all the same.” 

m 


500 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ I am satisfied there is not a word of truth in what 
you say,” rejoined Mr. Palmer. “ I desire you to order 
your people away at once.” 

“That I cannot do. It would be to require their 
consent to die of cold.” 

“ Let them die ! What are they to us — or to any- 
body! Order them off, or it will be the worse for 
them — and for you too ! ” 

“ Excuse me ; I cannot.” 

“ I give you one more warning. Go yourself, and they 
will follow.” 

“ I will not.” 

“ Go, or I will compel you.” 

As he spoke, he half raised his gun. 

“You dare not!” said the chief, drawing himself up 
indignantly. 

Together Mr. Palmer and Mr. Sercombe raised their 
guns to their shoulders, and one of them fired. To 
give Mr. Palmer the benefit of a doubt, he was not 
quite at home with his gun, and would use a hair-trig- 
ger. The same instant each found himself, with breath 
and consciousness equally scant, floundering, gun and 
all, in the black bog water on whose edge he had stood. 
There now stood Rob of the Angels, gazing after 
them into the depth with the look of an avenging 
angel. 

His father stood beside him, grim as a gratified Fate. 
Such a roar of rage rose from the clansmen with the 
shot, and so many come bounding with sticks and 
spades over the rough ground, that the keepers, know- 
ing, if each killed his two men, they would not after 
escape with their lives, judged it more prudent to wait 
orders. Only Valentine came running in terror to the 
help of his father. 


THE PEAT-MOSS. 


501 


“ Don’t be frightened,” said Rob ; “ we only wanted 
to wet their powder ! ” 

“But they’ll be drowned!” cried the lad, almost 
weeping. 

“ Not a hair of them ! ” answered Rob. “ We’ll have 
them out in a moment ! But please tell your men, if 
they dare to lift a gun, we’ll serve them the same. It 
wets the horn, and it cools the man ! ” 

A minute more, and the two men lay coughing and 
gasping on the crumbly bank, for in their utter sur- 
prisal they had let more of the nasty soft water inside 
than was good for them. With his first breath Ser- 
combe began to swear. 

“ Drop that, sir, if you please,” said Rob, “ or in you 
go again ! ” 

He began to reply with a volley of oaths, but began 
only, for the same instant the black water was again 
choking him. Might Hector of the Stags have had his 
way, he would have kept there the murderer of an 
cabrach mor till he had to be dived for. Rob was de- 
termined he should not come out until he gave his word 
that he would not swear. 

“ Come ! come ! ” gasped Sercombe at length, after 
many attempts to get out which the bystanders easily 
foiled — “ you don’t mean to drown me, do you ? ” 

“ We mean to drown your bad language. Promise 
to use no more on this peat-moss,” returned Rob. 

“ Damn the promise you get from me ! ” he gasped. 

“ Men must have patience with a suffering brother ! ” 
remarked Rob, and, saying a few words in Gaelic which 
drew a hearty laugh from the men about him, seated 
himself on a heap of turf to watch the unyielding 
flounder in the peat-hole, where there was no room to 
swim. He had begun to fear the man would drown in 


502 


what’s mine’s mine. 


his contumacy, when his ears welcomed the despairing 
words — 

“ Take me out, and I will promise anything.” 

He was scarcely able to move till one of the keepers 
gave him whiskey, but in a few minutes he was crawl- 
ing homeward after his host, who, fruitful parent of 
little streams, was doing his best to walk over rocks and 
through bogs with the help of Valentine’s arm, chatter- 
ing rather than muttering something about “proper 
legal fashion.” 

In the meantime the chief lay shot in the right arm 
and chest, but not dangerously wounded by the scatter- 
ing lead. 

He had lost a good deal of blood, and was faint — a 
sensation new to him. The women had done what they 
could, but that was only binding his arm, laying him 
in a dry place, and giving him water. He would not 
let them recall the men till the enemy was gone. 

When they knew what had happened they were in 
sad trouble — Rob of the Angels especially. The chief 
would have him get the shot out of his arm with his 
knife ; but Rob, instead, started off at full speed, run- 
ning as no man else in the county could run, to fetch 
the doctor to the castle. 

At the chief’s desire, they made a hurried meal, and 
then resumed the loading of the carts, preparing one of 
them for his transport. When it was half full, they 
covered the peats with a layer of dry elastic turf, then 
made on that a bed of heather, tops uppermost; and 
more to please them than that he could not walk, Alis- 
ter consented to be laid on this luxurious invalid-car- 
riage, and borne home over the rough roads like a dis- 
abled warrior. 

They arrived some time before the doctor. 


CHAPTER XLIX. 


A DARING VISIT, 



ERCY soon learned that some sort of encounter 


had taken place between her father’s shooting 
party and some of the clan ; also that the chief was 
hurt, but not in what manner — for by silent agree- 
ment that was not mentioned : it might seem to put 
them in the wrong ! She had, however, heard enough 
to fill her with anxiety. Her window commanded the 
ridge by the castle, and she seated herself with her 
opera-glass to watch that point. When the hill-party 
came from behind the ruin, she missed his tall figure 
amongst his people, but presently discovered him lying 
very white on one of the carts. Her heart became as 
water within her. But instant contriving how she 
could reach him, kept her up. 

By and by Christina came to tell her she had just 
heard from one of the servants that the Macruadh was 
shot. Mercy having seen him alive, heard the frightful 
news with tolerable calmness. Christina said she 
would do her best to discover before the morning how 
much he was hurt ; no one in the house seemed able to 
tell her ! Mercy, to avoid implicating her sister, held 
her peace as to her own intention. 

As soon as it was dark she prepared to steal from the 
house, dreading nothing but prevention. When her 
dinner was brought her, and she knew they were all 
safe in the dining-room, she drew her plaid over her 


503 


504 


what’s mine’s mine. 


head, and leaving her food untasted, stole half down 
the stair, whence watching her opportunity between 
the comings and goings of the waiting servants, she 
presently got away unseen, crept softly past the 
windows, and when out of the shrubbery, darted off at 
her full speed. Her breath was all but gone when she 
knocked panting at the drawing-room door. 

It opened, and there stood the mother of her chief ! 
But the moment Mrs. Macruadh saw her, leaving her 
no time to say a word, she bore down upon her like 
one vessel that would sink another, pushing, her from 
the door, and pulling it to behind her, stern as righteous 
Fate. Mercy was not going to be put down, however : 
she was doing nothing wrong ! 

“ How is the Macruadh, please ? ” she managed to 
say. 

“ Alive, but terribly hurt,” answered his mother, and 
would have borne her out of the open door of the cot- 
tage, towards the latch of which she reached her hand 
while yet a yard from it. Her action said, “ why will 
Nancy leave the door open ! ” 

“ Please, please, what is it ? ” panted Mercy, standing 
her ground. “ How is he hurt ? ” 

She turned upon her almost fiercely. 

“ This is what you have done for him ! ” she said, 
with right ungenerous reproach. “ Your father fired at 
him, on my son’s own land, and shot him in the chest.” 

“ Is he in danger ? ” gasped Mercy, leaning against 
the wall, trembling so she could scarcely then stand. 

“ I fear he is in great danger. If only the doctor 
would come ! ” 

“You wouldn’t mind my sitting in the kitchen till 
he comes ? ” whispered Mercy, her voice all but gone. 

“ I could not allow it. I will not connive at your 


A DARING VISIT. 


505 


coming here without the knowledge of your parents ! 
It is not at all a proper thing for a young lady to do ! ” 

“ Then I will wait outside ! ” said Mercy, her quick 
temper waking in spite of her anxiety : she had antici- 
pated coldness, but not treatment like this ! “ There 

is one, I think, Mrs. Macruadh,” she added, “ who will 
not find fault with me for it ! ” 

“ At least he will not tell you so for some time ! ” 

The door opened behind her ; she had left a chink. 

“ She does not mean me, mother,” said Alister ; 
“ she means Jesus Christ. He would say to you, Let 
her alone. He does not care for Society. Its ways 
are not his ways, nor its laws his laws. — Come in, 
Mercy. I am sorry my mother’s trouble about me 
should have made her unhospitable to you ! ” 

“ I cannot come in, Alister, if she will not let me ! ” 
answered Mercy. 

“ Pray w T alk in ! I can sit in the kitchen till you are 
gone ! ” said Mrs. Macruadh. 

She would have passed Mercy, but the trance was 
narrow, and Mercy did not move to make room for 
her. 

“ You see, Alister, I cannot ! ” insisted Mercy. “ That 
would not please, would it?” she added reverently. 
“ Tell me how you are, and I will go, and come again 
to-morrow.” 

Alister told her what had befallen, making little of 
the affair, and saying he suspected it was an accident. 

“ Oh, thank you ! ” she said, with a sigh of relief. 
“ I meant to sit by the castle wall till the doctor came ; 
but now I shall get back before they discover I am 
gone.” 

Without a word more, she turned and ran from the 
house, and reached her room unmissed and unseen. 


506 


what’s mine’s mine. 


The next was a dreary hour the most painful that 
mother and son had ever passed together. The mother 
was all the time buttressing her pride with her grief, 
and the son was cut to the heart that he should have 
had to take part against his mother. But when the 
doctor came at length, and she saw him take out his 
instruments, the pride that parted her from her boy 
melted away. 

“ Forgive me, Alister ! ” she whispered ; and his happy 
kiss comforted her repentant soul. 

When the small operations were over, and Alister 
was in bed, she would have gone to let Mercy know 
all she could tell her. But she must not : it would 
work mischief in the house ! She sat down by Alister’s 
bedside, and watched him all night. 

He slept well, being in such a healthful condition of 
body that his loss of blood, and the presence of the few 
shot that could not be found, did him little harm. He 
yielded to his mother’s entreaties to spend the morning 
in bed, but was up long before the evening in the hope 
of Mercy’s coming confident that his mother would now 
be like herself to her. She came; the mother took her 
in her arms, and begged her forgiveness ; nor, having 
thus embraced her, could she any more treat her rela- 
tion to her son with coldness. If the girl was ready, 
ns her conduct showed, to leave all for Alister, she had 
saved her soul alive, she was no more one of the enemy ! 

Thus was the mother repaid for her righteous educa- 
tion of her son : through him her pride received almost 
a mortal blow, her justice grew more discriminating, 
and her righteousness more generous. 

In a few days the chief was out, and looking quite 
himself. 


CHAPTER L. 


THE FLITTING. 



IHE time was drawing nigh when the warning of 


ejection would doubtless begin to be put in force ; 
and the chief hearing, through Rob of the Angels, that 
attempts were making to stir the people up, took meas- 
ures to render them futile : they must be a trick of the 
enemy to get them into trouble ! Taking counsel there- 
fore with the best of the villagers, both women and 
men, he was confirmed in the idea that they had better 
all remove together, before the limit of the earliest notice 
was expired. But his councillors all agreed with him 
that the people should only be told to get themselves 
in readiness to move at a moment’s notice. In the 
meantime he pushed on their labor at the new village. 

In the afternoon jireceding the day on which certain 
of the clan were to be cast out of their homes, the chief 
went to the village, and going from house to house, told 
his people to have everything in order for flitting that 
very night, so that in the morning there should not be 
an old shoe left ; and to be careful that no rumor of 
their purpose got abroad. They would thus have a 
good laugh at the enemy, who was reported to have 
applied for military assistance as a precautionary meas- 
ure. II is horses should be ready, and as soon as it was 
dark they would begin to cart and carry, and be snug 
in their new houses before the morning ! 

All agreed, and a tumult of preparation began. 


507 


508 


what’s mine’s mine. 


“ Lady Macruadh ” came with help and counsel, and 
took the children in charge while the mothers bustled. 
It was amazing how much had to be done to remove so 
small an amount of property. The chief’s three carts 
were first laden ; then the men and women loaded each 
other. The chief took on his back the biggest load of 
all, except indeed it were Hector’s. To and fro went 
the carts, and to and fro went the men and women, I 
know not how many journeys, upheld by companionship, 
merriment, hope, and the clan-mother’s plentiful pro- 
vision of tea, coffee, milk, bread and butter, cold mut- 
ton and ham — luxurious fare to all. As the sun was 
rising, they closed every door, and walked for the last 
time, laden with the last of their goods, out of the 
place of their oppression, leaving behind them not a 
cock to crow, a peat to burn, or a scrap that was worth 
stealing — all removed in such order and silence that not 
one, even at the New House, had a suspicion of what 
was going on. Mercy, indeed, as she sat looking from 
her window like Daniel praying toward Jerusalem, her 
constant custom now, even when there was no moon to 
show what lay before her, did think she heard strange 
sounds come faintly through the night from the shadowy 
valley below — even thought she caught glimpses of a 
shapeless gnome-like train moving along the road ; but 
she only wondered if the Highlands had suddenly gifted 
her with the second sight, and these were the brain- 
phantasms of coming events. She listened and gazed, 
but could not be sure that she heard or saw. 

When she looked out in the morning, however, she 
understood, for the castle-ridge was almost hidden in 
the smoke that poured from every chimney of the new 
village. Her heart swelled with joy to think of her 
chief with all his people under his eyes, and within 


THE FLITTING. 


509 


reach of his voice. From her window they seemed so 
many friends gathered to comfort her solitude, or the 
camp of an army come to set her free. 

Hector and Rob, with one or two more of the clan, 
hid themselves to watch those who came to evict the 
first of the villagers. There were no military. Two 
sheriff ’s-officers, a good many constables, and a few 
vagabonds, made up the party. Rob’s keen eye en- 
abled him to distinguish the very moment when first 
they began to be aware of something unusual about the 
place ; he saw them presently halt and look at each 
other as if the duty before them were not altogether 
canny . At no time would there be many signs of life 
in the poor hamlet, but there would always be some 
sounds of handicraft, some shuttle or hammer going, 
some cries of children weeping or at play, some noises 
of animals, some ascending smoke, some issuing or en- 
tering shape ! They feared an ambush, a sudden on- 
slaught. Warily they stept into the place, sharply and 
warily they looked about them in the street, slowly and 
with circumspection they opened door after door, 
afraid of what might be lurking behind to pounce upon 
them unawares. Only after searching every house, and 
discovering not the smallest sign of the presence of liv- 
ing creature, did they recognize their fool’s-errand. 
And all the time there was the new village, smoking, 
hard, under the very windows, as he chose himself to 
say, of its chief adversary ! 


CHAPTER LI. 


THE NEW VILLAGE, 


HE winter came clown upon them early, and the 



-L chief and his mother had a sore time of it. 
Well as they had known it before, the poverty of their 
people was far better understood by them now. Un- 
able to endure the sight of it, and spending more and 
more to meet it, they saw it impossible for them to hold 
out. For a long time their succor had been more and 
more exhausting the poor resources of the chief ; he had 
borne up in the hope of the money he was so soon to re- 
ceive ; and now there was none, and the need greater 
than ever ! lie was not troubled, for his faith was 
simple and strong ; but his faith made him the more 
desirous of doing his part for the coming deliverance : 
faith in God compels and enables a man to be a fellow- 
worker with God. He was now waiting the judgment 
of Ian concerning the prospects of the settlers in that 
part of Canada to which he had gone, hoping it might 
help him to some resolve in view of the worse diffi- 
culties at hand. 

In the meantime the clan was more comfortable, and 
passed the winter more happily than for. many years. 
First of all, they had access to the chief at any moment. 
Then he had arranged a room in his own house where 
were always fire and light for such as would read what 
books he was able to lend them, or play at quiet games. 
To them its humble arrangements were sumptuous. 


510 


THE NEW VILLAGE. 


511 


And best of all, he would, in the long dark fore-nights, 
as the. lowland Scotch call them, read aloud, at one time 
in Gaelic, at another in English, things that gave them 
great delight. Donal shoemaker was filled with joy 
unutterable by the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. If 
only this state of things could be kept up — with Ian 
back and Mercy married to the chief ! thought the 
mother. But it was not to be ; that grew plainer every 
day. 

Mr. Palmer would gladly have spent his winter else- 
where, leaving his family behind him; but as things 
were, he could not leave them, and as certain other 
things were, he did not care to take them to London. 
Besides, for them all to leave now, would be to confess 
defeat ; and who could tell what hurt to his forest 
might not follow in his absence from the cowardly 
hatred of the peasants ! He was resolved to see the 
thing out. But above all, he must keep that worthless 
girl, Mercy, under his own eye ! 

“ That’s what comes of not drinking ! ” he would say 
to himself ; “ a man grows as proud as Satan, and 
makes himself a curse to his neighbors ! ” 

Then he would sigh like a man ill used and disconso- 
late. 

Both Mercy and the chief thought it better not to 
venture much, but they did occasionally contrive to 
meet for a few minutes — generally by the help of 
Christina. Twice only was Mercy’s handkerchief hung 
from the window, when her longing for his voice had 
grown almost too strong for her to bear. The signal 
brought him both times through the wild wintry storm, 
joyous as a bird through the summer air. Once or 
twice they met just outside the gate, Mercy flying like 
a snow-bird to the tryst, and as swiftly back through 


512 


what’s mine’s mine. 


the keen blue frost, when her breath as she ran seemed 
to linger in the air like smoke, and threaten to betray 
her. 

At length came the much desired letter from Ian, full 
of matter for the enabling of the chief’s decision. 

Two things had long been clear to Alister — that, 
even if the ground he had could keep his people alive, 
it certainly could not keep them all employed ; and 
that, if they went elsewhere, especially to any town, it 
might induce for many, and ensure for their children 
a lamentable descent in the moral scale. He was their 
shepherd, and must lose none of them ! therefore, first 
of all, he must not lose sight of them ! It was now 
clear also, that the best and most desirable thing was, 
that the poor remnant of the clan should leave their 
native country, and betake themselves where not a few 
of their own people, among them Lachlan and Annie, 
would welcome them to probable ease and comfort. 
There he would buy land, settle and build with them 
a village. Some would cultivate the soil under their 
chief ; others would pursue their trades for the good 
of the community and themselves ! 

And now once more came the love of land face to 
face with the love of men, and in the chief’s heart paled 
before it. For there was but one way to get the need- 
ful money : the last of the Macruadh property must go ! 
Not for one moment did it rouse a grudging thought 
in the chief: it was for the sake of the men and women 
and children whose lives would be required of him ! 
The land itself must yield them wings to forsake it 
withal, and fly beyond the sea. 


CHAPTER LII. 


A FRIENDLY OFFER. 


T was agreed between mother and son to submit the 



-L matter to Ian, and if he should be of the same 
mind, at once to negotiate for the sale of the land, in 
order to carry the clan to Canada. They wrote there- 
fore to Ian, and composed themselves to await his 
answer. 

It was a sorrowful thing to Alister to seem for a 
moment to follow the example of the recreant chief, 
whose defection to feudalism was the prelude to their 
treachery towards their people, and whose faithlessness 
has ruined the highlands. But unlike Glengarry or 
“ Esau ” Reay, he desired to sell his land that he might 
keep his people, care for them, and share with them : 
his people safe, what mattered the acres ! 

Reflecting on the thing, he saw, in the case of Ian’s 
approval of the sale, no reason why he should not show 
friendliness where none was expected, and give Mr. 
Peregrine Palmer the first chance of purchase. He 
thought, also, with his usual hopefulness, that the time 
might come when the clan, laying its savings together, 
would be able to redeem their ancient homesteads, and 
then it might be an advantage that it was all in the 
possession of one man. Such things had been, and 
might be again ! The Lord could bring again the cap- 
tivity of Clanruadh as well as that of Israel ! 

Two months passed, and they had Ian’s answer — when 


513 


514 


wiiat’s mine’s mine. 


it was well on into the spring, and weather good for a 
sea-voyage was upon its way. Because of the loss of 
their uncle’s money, and the good prospect of comfort 
in return for labor, hard but not killing, Ian entirely 
approved of the proposal. From that moment the 
thing was no longer discussed, but how best to carry it 
out. The chief assembled the clan in the barn, read 
his brother’s letter, and in a simple speech acquainted 
them with the situation. He told them of the loss of 
the money to which he had looked for the power to aid 
them ; reminded them that there was neither employ- 
ment nor subsistence enough on the land not even if his 
mother and he were to live like the rest of them, which 
if necessary they were quite prepared to do ; and stated 
his resolve to part with the remnant of the land in order 
to provide the means of their migrating in a body to 
Canada, where not a few old friends were eager to wel- 
come them. There they would buy land, he said, of 
which every man that would cultivate it should have a 
portion, enough to live upon, while those with trades 
should have every facility for following them. All, he be- 
lieved, would fare well in return for hard work, and 
they would be in the power of no man. There was 
even a possibility, he hoped, that, if they lived and 
labored well, they might one day buy back the home 
they had left ; or if not, they, their sons and daughters, 
might return from their captivity, and restore the house 
of their fathers. If anyone would not go, he would do 
for him what seemed fair. 

Donal shoemaker rose, unpuckered his face, slackened 
the purse-strings of his mouth, and said, 

“ Where my chief goes, I will go ; where my chief 
lives, I will live ; and where my chief is buried, God 
grant I may be buried also, with all my family ! ” 


A FRIENDLY OFFER. 


515 


He sat down, covered his face with his hands, and 
wept and sobbed. 

One voice rose from all present : 

“We’ll go, Macruadh! we’ll go! Our chief is our 
home ! ” 

The chief’s heart swelled with mingled gladness and 
grief, but he answered quietly, 

“ Then you must at once begin your preparations ; 
we ought not to be in a hurry at the last.” 

An immediate stir, movement, bustle, followed. 
There was much talking, and many sunny faces over 
which kept sweeping the clouds of sorrow. 

The next morning the chief went to the New House, 
and desired to see Mr. Palmer. He was shown into 
what the new laird called his study. Mr. Palmer’s 
first thought was that he had come to call him to ac- 
count for firing at him. He neither spoke nor advanced 
a step to meet him. The chief stood still some yards 
from him, and said as pleasantly as he could, — 

“ You are surprised to see me, Mr. Palmer ! ” 

“ I am.” 

“I come to ask if you would like to buy my land ? ” 

“ Already ! ” said Mr. Palmer, cast on his enemy a 
glare of victory, and stood regarding him. The chief 
did not reply. 

“ Well ! ” said Mr. Palmer. 

“I wait your answer,” returned the chief. 

“ Did it never strike you that insolence might be car- 
ried too far?” 

“ I come for your sake more than my own,” rejoined 
the chief, without even a shadow of anger. “ I have 
no particular desire you should take the land, but 
thought it reasonable you should have the first offer.” 

“ What a dull ox the fellow must take me for ! ” 


516 


what’s mine’s mine. 


remarked the new laird to himself. “ It’s all a dodge 
to get into the house ! As if he would sell me his land ! 
or could think I would hold any communication with 
him! Buy his land! It’s some trick, I’ll lay my soul ! 
The infernal scoundrel ! Such a mean-spirited wretch 
too ! Takes an ounce of shot in the stomach, and never 
says 4 What the devil do you mean by it ! ’ I don’t 
believe the savage ever felt it ! ’ 

Something like this passed with thought’s own swift- 
ness through the mind of Mr. Palmer, as he stood look- 
ing the chief from head to foot, yet in his inmost per- 
son feeling small before him. 

44 If you cannot at once make up your mind,” said 
Alister, 44 I will give you till to-morrow to think it over. 
I cannot afford you longer than that.” 

44 When you have learned to behave like a gentleman,” 
answered the new laird, 44 let me know, and I will refer 
you to my factor.” 

He turned and rang the bell. Alister bowed, and 
did not wait for the servant. 

It must be said for him, however, that that morning 
Christina had positively refused to listen to a word 
more from Mr. Sercombe. 

In the afternoon, Alister set out for London. 


CHAPTER Lin. 


ANOTHER EXPULSION. 



R. PEREGRINE PALMER brooded more and 


-LV-L more upon what he counted the contempt of 
the chief. It became in him almost a fixed idea. It 
had already sent out several suckers, and had, amongst 
others, developed the notion that he was despised by 
those from whom first of all he looked for the appreci- 
ation after which his soul thirsted — his own family. 
He grew therefore yet more moody, and his moodiness 
and distrust developed suspicion. It is scarce credible 
what a crushing influence the judgment he pretended 
to scorn, thus exercised upon him. It was not that he 
acknowledged in it the smallest justice ; neither was it 
that he cared altogether for what such a fanatical fool 
as the chief might think ; but he reflected that if one 
could so despise his money because of its source, there 
might be others, might be many who did so. At the 
same time, had he been sure of the approbation of all 
the world beside, it would have troubled him not a lit- 
tle, in his thirst after recognition, that any gentleman, 
one of family especially, however old-fashioned and ab- 
surd he might be, should look down upon him. His 
smouldering causelessly excited anger, his evident 
struggle to throw off an oppression, and fierce resent- 
ment of the chiefs judgment, which he would now and 
then betray, revealed how closely the offence clung to 
his consciousness. 


517 


518 


what’s mine’s mine. 


Flattering himself from her calmness that Mercy had 
got oyer her foolish liking for the “ boor,” as he would 
not unfrequently style the chief, he had listened to the 
prayers of her mother, and submitted to her company 
at the dinner-table, but he continued to treat her as one 
who had committed a shameful fault. 

That evening, the great little man could hardly eat 
his dinner for wrathful memories of the interview of 
the morning. Perhaps his most painful reflection was 
that he had not been quick enough to embrace the op- 
portunity of annihilating him. Thunder lowered por- 
tentous in his black brows, and not until he had drunk 
several glasses of wine did a word come from his lips. 
11 is presence was purgatory without the purifying ele- 
ment. 

“ What do you think that fellow has been here about 
this morning?” he said at length. 

“ What fellow ? ” asked his wife unnecessarily, for 
she knew what visitor had been shown into the study. 

“ The highland fellow,” he answered, “ that claims to 
do what he pleases on my property ! ” 

Mercy’s face grew hot. 

“ Came actually to give me the refusal of his land ! 
— the merest trick to get into the house — confound 
him ! As much as told me, if I did not buy it off-hand, 
I should not have the chance again ! The cheek of 
some people ! To dare to show his face in my house 
after trifling with my daughter’s affections on the pre- 
tence that he could not marry a girl whose father was 
in trade ! ” 

Mercy felt she would be false to the man she loved, 
and whom she knew to be true, if she did not speak. 
She had no thought of defending him, but simply of 
witnessing to him. 


ANOTHER EXPULSION. 


519 


“ T beg your pardon, papa,” she said, “ but the Mac- 
ruadh never trifled with me. He loves me, and has not 
given me up.~ If he told you he was going to part with 
his land, he is going to part with it, and came to you 
first because he must return good for evil. I saw him 
from my window ride off as if he were going to meet 
the afternoon coach.” 

She would not have been allowed to say so much, had 
not her father been speechless with rage. This was 
more than he or any man could bear ! He rose from 
the table, his eyes blazing. 

“ Return me good for evil ! ” he roared ; “ — a beast 
who has done me more wrong than ever I did in all my 
life ! a scoundrel bumpkin who loses not an opportu- 
nity of insulting me as never was man insulted before ! 
You are an insolent, heartless, depraved girl ! — ready 
to sacrifice yourself, body and soul, to a man who de- 
spises you and yours with the pride of a savage ! You 
hussy, I can scarce keep my hands off you ! ” 

He came towards her with a threatful stride. She 
rose, pushed back her chair, and stood facing him. 

“ Strike me,” she said with a choking voice, “ if you 
will, papa ; but mamma knows I am not what you call 
me ! I should be false and cowardly if I did not speak 
the truth for the man to whom I owe ” — she was go- 
ing to say “ more than to any other human being,” but 
she checked herself. 

“ If the brute is your god,” said her father, and struck 
her on the cheek with his open hand, “ you can go to 
him ! ” 

He took her by the arm, and pushed her before him 
out of the room, and across the hall ; then opening 
the door, shoved her from him into the garden, and 
flung the door to behind her. The rain was falling in 


520 


what’s mine’s mine. 


torrents, the night was very dark, and when the door 
shut, she felt as if she had lost her eyesight. 

It was terrible ! — but, thank God, she was free ! 
Without a moment’s hesitation — while her mother 
wept and pleaded, Christina stood burning with indig- 
nation, the two little ones sat white with open mouths, 
and the servants hurried about scared, and trying to 
look as if nothing had happened — Mercy fled into the 
dark. She stumbled into the shrubbery several times 
before she reached the gate ; and while they imagined 
her standing before the house waiting to be let in, she 
was running from it as from the jaws of the pit, in ter- 
ror of a voice calling her back. The pouring rain was 
sweet to her whole indignant person, and especially to 
the cheek where burned the brand of her father’s blow. 
The road was deep in mud, and she slipped and fell 
more than once as she ran. 

Mrs. Macruadh was sitting in the little parlor, no 
one but Nancy in the house, when the door opened, and 
in came the wild-looking girl, dragged and spent, and 
dropped kneeling at her feet. Great masses of long 
black hair hung dripping with rain about her shoulders. 
Her dress was torn and wet, and soiled with clay from 
the road and earth from the shrubbery. One cheek 
was white, and the other had a red patch on it. 

“ My poor child ! ” cried the mother ; “ what has 
happened ? Alister is away ! ” 

“ I know that,” Mercy panted. “ I saw him go, but 
I thought you would take me in — though you do not 
like me much ! ” 

“ Not like you, my child ! ” echoed the mother ten- 
derly. “ I love you ! Are you not my Alister’s 
choice ? There are things I could have wished other- 
wise, but ” 


ANOTHER EXPULSION. 


521 


“ Well could I wish them otherwise too ! ” interposed 
Mercy. u I do not wish another father ; and I am not 
quite able to wish he hadn’t struck me and put me out 
into the dark and the rain, but — ” 

“ Struck you and turned you out ! My poor child ! 
What did he do that for ? ” 

“ Perhaps I deserved it : It is difficult to know how 
to behave to a father ! A father is supposed to be one 
whom you not only love, as I do mine, but of whom 
you can be proud as well ! Now I can’t be proud of 
mine, and I don’t know quite how to behave to him. 
Perhaps I ought to have held my peace, but when he 
said things that were not — not correct about Alister, 
misinterpreting him altogether, I felt it cowardly and 
false to hold my tongue. So I said I did not believe 
that was what Alister meant. It is but a quarter of an 
hour ago, and it looks a fortnight ! I don’t think I 
quite know what I am saying ! 

She ceased, laid her head on Mrs. Macruadh’s knee, 
then sank to the floor, and lay motionless. All the 
compassion of the woman, all the protective pride of 
the chieftainess, woke in the mother. She raised the 
girl in her arms, and vowed that not one of her house 
should set eyes on her again without the consent of her 
son. He should see how his mother cared for what was 
his I — how wide her arms, how big her heart, to take 
in what he loved ! Dear to him, the daughter of the 
man she despised, should be as the apple of her eye ! 
They would of course repent and want her back, but 
they should not have her : neither should a sound of 
threat or demand reach the darling’s ears. She should 
be in peace until Alister came to determine her future. 
There was the mark of the wicked hand on the sweet 
sallow cheek ! She was not beautiful, but she would 


522 


what’s mine’s mine. 


love her the more to make up ! Thank God, they 
had turned her out, and that made her free of them ! 
They should not have her again ; Alister should have 
her ! — and from the hand of his mother ! 

She got her to bed, and sent for Rob of the Angels. 
With injunctions to silence, she told him to fetch his 
father, and be ready as soon as possible to drive a cart 
to the chief’s cave, there to make everything comfort- 
able to receive herself and Miss Mercy Palmer. 

Mercy slept well, and as the day was breaking Mrs. 
Macruadh woke her and helped her to dress. Then 
they walked together through the lovely spring morning 
to the turn of the valley road, where a cart was waiting 
them, half-filled with oat-straw. They got in and were 
borne up and up at a walking-pace to the spot Mercy 
knew so well. Never by swiftest coach had she en- 
joyed a journey so much as that slow crawl up the 
mountains in the rough springless cart of her plough- 
man lover ! She felt so protected, so happy, so hope- 
ful. Alister’s mother was indeed a hiding place from 
the wind, a covert from the tempest ! Having consented 
to be her mother, she could mother her no way but en- 
tirely. An outcast for the sake of her Alister, she 
should have the warmest corner of her heart next to 
him and Ian ! 

Into the tomb they went, and found everything 
strangely comfortable — the stone-floor covered with 
warm and woolly skins of black-faced sheep, a great 
fire glowing, plenty of provisions hung and stored, and 
the deaf, keen-eyed father with the swift, keen-eared 
son for attendants. 

“You will not mind sharing your bed with me — 
will you, my child ? ” said Mrs. Macruadh : “ our ac- 
commodation is scanty. But we shall be safe from 


ANOTHER EXPULSION. 


523 


intrusion. Only those two faithful men know where 
we are.” 

“ My mother will be terribly frightened ! ” said 
Mercy. 

“ I thought of that and left a note with Nancy, tell- 
ing her you were safe and well, but giving no hint where. 
I told her that her dove had flown to my bosom for 
shelter, and there she should have it.” 

Mercy answered with a passionate embrace. 

Ten peaceful days they spent in the cave-house. It 
was cold outside, but the clear air of the hill-top was 
delicious, and inside it was warm and dry. There were 
plenty of books, and Mercy never felt the time a mo- 
ment too long. The mother talked freely of her sons, 
and of their father, of the history of the clan, of her 
own girlhood, and of the hopes and intentions of her 
sons. 

“ Will you go with him, Mercy ? ” she asked, laying 
her hand on hers. 

“ I would rather be his servant,” answered Mercy, 
“ than remain at home : there is no life there ! ” 

“ There is life wherever there is the will to live — 
that is, to do the thing that is given one to do,” said 
the mother. 

In writing she told Alister nothing of what had hap- 
pened : he might hurry home without completing his 
business! Undisturbed by fresh anxiety, he settled 
everything, parted with his property to an old friend of 
the family, and received what would suffice for his fur- 
ther intents. He also chartered a vessel to take them 
over the sea, and to save weariness and expense arranged 
for it to go northwards as far as a certain bay on the 
coast, and there take the clan on board. 

When at length he reached home, Nancy informed 


524 


what’s mine’s mine. 


him that his mother was at the hill-house, and begged 
he would go there to her. He was a good deal per- 
plexed. She very seldom went there, and had never 
before gone for the night ! and it was so early in the 
season ! He set out immediately. 

It was twilight when they reached the top of the hill, 
and no light shone from the little windows of the tomb. 

That day Mercy had been amusing her protectress 
with imitations, in w T hich kind she had some gift, of 
certain of her London acquaintance : when the mother 
heard her son’s approaching step a thought came to 
her. 

“ Here ! quick ! ” she said ; “ put on my cap and 
shawl, and sit in this chair. I will go into the bed-room. 
Then do as you like.” 

When the chief entered, he saw the form of his 
mother, as he thought, bending over the peat-fire, which 
had sunk rather low : in his imagination he saw again 
the form of his uncle as on that night in the low moon- 
light. She did not move, did not even look up. He 
stood still for a moment ; a strange feeling possessed 
him of something not being as it ought to be, but he re- 
covered himself with an effort, and kneeling beside her, 
put his arms around her. He was not a little frightened 
at her continued silence. 

“What is the matter, mother dear?” he said. 
“ Why have you come up to this lonely place?” 

When first Mercy felt his arms round her, she could 
not have spoken if she would — her heart seemed to 
grow too large for her body. But in a moment or two 
she controlled herself, and was able to say — sufficiently 
in his mother’s tone and manner to keep up the imitated 
misconception : 

“ They put me out of the house, Alister.” 


ANOTHER EXPULSION. 


525 


“ Put you out of the house ! ” he returned, like one 
hearing and talking in a dream. “ Who dared interfere 
with you, mother ? Ami losing my senses ? I seem 
not to understand my own words ! ” 

“ Mr. Palmer.” 

“Mr. Palmer! Was it to him I sold the land in 
London ? What could he have to do with you, mother ? 
How did they allow him to come near the house in my 
absence ? Oh, I see ! He came and worried you so 
about Mercy that you were glad to take refuge from 
him up here ! — I understand now ! ” 

He ended in a tone of great relief. He felt as if he 
had just recovered his senses. 

“ No, that was not it. But we are going so soon 
there would have been no good in fighting it out. W e 
are going soon, are we not ? ” 

“ Indeed we are, please God ! ” replied the chief, who 
had relapsed into bewilderment. 

“ That is well — for you more than anybody. — Would 
you believe it — the worthless girl vows she will never 
leave her father’s house ! ” 

“ Ah, mother, you never heard her say so ! I know 
Mercy better than that ! She will leave it when I say 
come. But that won’t be now. I must wait, and come 
and fetch her when she is of age.” 

“ She is not worthy of you ! ” 

“She is worthy of me if I were twenty times 
worthier ! Mother, mother what has turned you against 
us again ? It is not like you to change about so ! I 
cannot bear to find you changeable ! I should have 
sworn you were just the one to understand her per- 
fectly ! I cannot bear you should let unworthy reasons 
prejudice you against anyone! — If you say a word 
more against her, I will go outside and sit with the 


526 


what’s mine’s mine. 


moon. She is not up yet, but she will be presently — 
and though she is rather old and silly, I shall find her 
much better company than you, mother dear ! ” 

He spoke playfully, but was grievously puzzled. 

“ To whom are you talking, Alister ? — yourself or a 
ghost?” 

Alister started up, and saw his mother coming from 
the bed-room with a candle in her hand ! He stood 
stupefied. He looked again at the seated figure, still 
bending over the fire. Who was it if not his mother ? 

With a wild burst of almost hysterical laughter, Mercy 
sprang to her feet, and threw herself in his arms. It 
was not the less a new bewilderment that it was an un- 
speakably delightful change from the last. Was he 
awake or dreaming? Was the dream of his boyhood 
come true ? or was he dreaming it on in his manhood ? 
The princess was arrived ! She was here in his cave to 
be his own ! 

A great calm and a boundless hope filled the heart 
of Alister. The night was far advanced when he left 
them to go home. Nor did he find his way home, but, 
almost without meaning it, wandered all night about 
the tomb, making long rounds and still returning like 
an angel sent to hover and watch until the morning. 
When he astonished them by entering as they sat at 
breakfast, and he told them how he had passed the 
night, it thrilled Mercy’s heart to know that, while she 
slept and was dreaming about him, he was awake and 
thinking about her ! 

“ What is only dreaming in me, is thinking in you, 
Alister ! ” she said. 

“ I was thinking,” returned Alister, “ that as you did 
not know I was watching you, so, when we feel as if 
God were nowhere, he is watching over us all the time 


ANOTHER EXPULSION. 


527 


with an eternal consciousness; that he is above and 
beyond our every hope and fear, untouched by the 
varying faith and fluctuating moods of his children.” 

After breakfast he went to see the clergyman of the 
parish, who lived some miles away ; the result of which 
visit was that after a few days they were married. 
First, however, he went once more to the New House 
desiring to tell Mr. Palmer what had been and was 
about to be done. He refused to see him, and would 
not allow his wife or Christina to go to him. 

The wedding was solemnized at noon within the 
ruined walls of the old castle. The withered remnant 
of the clan marched, with pipes playing, guns firing, and 
shouts of celebration to the cave house to fetch thence 
the bride. When the ceremony was over, a feast was 
ready for all in the barn, and much dancing followed. 

When evening came, with a half-moon hanging faint 
in the limpid blue, and the stars looking large through 
the mist of ungathered tears — those of nature, not the 
lovers ; with a wind like the breath of a sleeping child, 
sweet and soft, and full of dreams of summer; the 
mountains and hills asleep around them like a flock of 
day-wearied things, and haunted by the angels of Rob’s 
visions — the lovers, taking leave only of the mother, 
stole away to walk through the heavenly sapphire of 
the still night, up the hills and over the rushing streams 
of the spring, to the cave of their rest — no ill omen, 
but lovely symbol to such as held the tomb for the 
porch of paradise. Where should true lovers make 
their bed but on the threshold of eternity ! 


CHAPTER LIV. 


THE FAREWELL. 


MONTH passed, and the flag of their exile 



was flying in the bay. The same hour it was 
descried the chiefs horses were put to, the carts were 
loaded, their last things gathered. Few farewells had 
to be made, for the whole clan, except two that had 
gone to the bad, had turned out at the hour appointed. 
The chief arranged them in marching column. Fore- 
most went the pipes ; the chief, his wife and his mother, 
came next ; Hector of the Stags, carrying the double- 
barrelled rifle the chief had given him, Rob of the An- 
gels, and Donal shoemaker, followed. Then came the 
women and children ; next the carts, with a few, who 
could not walk, on the top of the baggage ; the men 
brought up the rear, with four or five favorite dogs. 

The road to the bay led them past the gate of the 
New House. The chief called a halt, and went with 
his wife to seek a last interview. Mr. Peregrine Pal- 
mer kept his room, but Mrs. Palmer bade her daughter 
a loving farewell — more relieved than she cared to 
show, that the cause of so much discomfort was going 
so far away. 

The children wept. Christina bade her sister 
good-by with a hopeless, almost envious look ; Mercy, 
who did not love him, would see Ian ! she who would 
give her soul for him was never to look on him again 
in this world ! 


528 


THE FAKEWELL. 


529 


Kissing Mercy once more, she choked down a sob, and 
whispered, 

“ Give my love — no, my heart, to Ian, and tell him 
I am trying.” 

They all walked to the gate together, and there the 
chiefs mother took her leave of the ladies of the New 
House. The pipes struck up ; the column moved on. 

When they came to the corner which would hide 
from them their native strath, the march changed to a 
lament, and with the opening wail, all stopped and 
turned for a farewell look. Men and women, the chief 
alone excepted, burst into weeping, and the sound of 
their lamentation went wandering through the hills to 
every beloved spot with an adieu. And this is what 
the pipes said : 

We shall never see you more, 

Never more, never more! 

Till the sea he dry, and the world be bare, 

And the dews have ceased to fall, 

And the rivers have ceased to run, 

We shall never see you more, 

Never more, never more! 

They stood and gazed, and the pipes went on lament- 
ing, and the women went on weeping. 

“ This is heathenism ! ” said Alister to himself, and 
stopped the piper. 

« My friends,” he cried, in Gaelic of course, “ look 
at me : my eyes are dry ! Where Jesus, the Son of 
God, i s — there is my home! He is here, and he is 
over the sea, and my home is everywhere ! I have lost 
my land and my country, but I take with me my peo- 
ple, and make no moan over my exile ! Hearts are 
more than hills. Farewell, Strathruadh of my child- 
hood ! Place of my dreams, I shall, please God, visit 


530 


what’s mine’s mine. 


you again in my sleep ! And again I shall see you in 
happier times, with my friends around me ! ” 

He took off his bonnet. The men uncovered for a 
moment, then turned to follow their chief. The pipes 
struck up Macrimmon’s lament, Till an crodh a 
Dhounachaidh ( Turn the hine , Duncan). Not one 
looked behind him again till they reached the shore. 
There, out in the bay, the biggest ship any of the clan 
had ever seen was waiting to receive them. 

When Mr. Peregrine Palmer saw that the land might 
in truth be for sale, he would gladly have bought it, but 
found to his chagrin that he was too late. It was just 
like the fellow, he said, to mock him with the chance of 
buying it ! he took care not to send a man he could 
have believed ! 

The clan throve in the clearings of the pine forests. 
The hill-men stared at their harvests as if they saw 
them growing. Their many children were strong and 
healthy, and called Scotland their home. 

In an outlying and barren part of the chief’s land, 
they came upon rock oil. It was so plentiful that as 
soon as carriage became possible, the chief and his peo- 
ple began to grow rich. 

News came to them that Mr. Peregrine Palmer was in 
difficulties, and desirous of parting with his highland 
estate. The chief was now able to buy it ten times over. 
He gave his agent directions to secure it for him in Lon- 
don, with any other land conterminous that might come 
into the market. But he would not at once return to 
occupy it, for his mother dreaded the sea, and thought 
to start soon for another home. Also he would rather 
have his boys grow where they were, and as men face 
the temptations beyond : where could they find such 


THE FAKEWELL. 


531 


teaching as that of their uncle Ian ! Both father and 
uncle would have them alive before encountering what 
the world calls life. 

But the Macruadh yet dreams of the time when those 
of the clan then left in the world, accompanied, he 
hopes, by some of those that went out before them, shall 
go back to repeople the old waste places, and make the 
mountain land no more a wilderness of white sheep and 
red deer, but a nursery for honest, unambitious, brave, 
strong-hearted men and women, loving God and their 
neighbor; where no man will think of himself at his 
brother’s cost, no man grow rich by his neighbor’s ruin, 
no man lay field to field, to treasure up for himself 
wrath against the day of wrath. 





Monteagle. By Pansy. Boston: D. Lothrop 
Company. Price 75 cents. Both girls and boys 
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able reading. Dilly West is a character whom the 
first will find it an excellent thing to intimate, and 
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A Dozen of Them. By Pansy. Boston: D. 
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Story of the American Sailor. By E. S. 
Brooks. 111. Boston : D. Lothrop Co. Price 
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It would be a difficult matter to get at the first 
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lins. Boston : I). Lotlirop Co. Price #1.25. Here 
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The Art of Living. From the Writings of 
Samuel Smiles. With Introduction by the ven- 
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Biographical Sketch by the editor. Carrie Adelaide 
Cooke. Boston : D. Lothrop Company. Price 
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Samuel Smiles is the Benjamin Franklin of Eng- 
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most complete and lasting repose from anxiety. 


Mary the Mother. Compiled by Rose Porter. 
111. Boston : D. Lothrop Co. Price $3.00. The 
purpose of this beautiful volume is to give an out- 
line story of Mary, the Mother-Maid, as told in the 
Holy Book, and by historical and legendary art, 
and in poetry. The theme, says the compiler in 
her preface, “though it lies within prescribed 
limits, is wide enough to embrace a broad field of 
thought, for it deals with all the most beautiful 
and precious productions of human genius and 
human skill as manifested by art, which the Mid- 
dle Ages and the Renaissance have bequeathed to 
us, and in them we can trace, present in shape 
before us, or suggested through inevitable associa- 
tions, one prevailing idea : it is that of an imper- 
sonation in the feminine character of beneficence, 
purity and power, clothed in the visible form of 
Mary, the Mother of our Lord.” 

The story is told in the purest devotional spirit. 
The curious legends which have been handed 
down or created by the religious writers of the 
Middle Ages are put into consecutive order, and 
illustrated by reproductions of pictures by the old 
masters, and of those by two or three modern 
painters. Deger’s famous picture of “The An- 
nunciation ” serves as the frontispiece. Then 
follows in order Ittenbach’s “ St. Mary the Vir- 
gin,” Titian’s “Presentation;” the “Annuncia- 
tion,” by Murillo; “The Salutation,” by Alber- 
tinelli ; “ St. John and the Virgin,” by Dobson; 
“The Assumption,” by Titian; “Mater Dolo- 
rosa,” by Guido Reni; “Mater Dolorosa,” by 
Carlo Dolce, and “The Madonna Addolorata,” by 
Sassaferrato. These are exquisitely reproduced, 
and are printed, as well as the text, on heavy, hot- 
pressed paper. The volume is bound in cloth, 
with a cover of special design. 


About Giants. By Isabel Smithson. Boston : 
D. Lotlirop Company. Price 60 cents. In this 
little volume Miss Smithson has gathered together 
many curious and interesting facts relating to 
real giants, or people who have grown to an ex- 
traordinary size. She does not believe that there 
was ever a race of giants, but that those who are 
so-called are exceptional cases, due to some freak- 
of nature. Among those described are Cutter, 
the Irish giant, who was eight feet tall, Tony 
Payne, whose height exceeded seven feet, and 
Chang, the Chinese giant, who was on exhibition 
in this country a few years ago. The volume 
contains not only accounts of giants, but also of 
dwarfs, and is illustrated. 


American Authors. By Amanda B. Harris. 
Boston: D. Lotlirop Company. Price $ 1.00.. This 
is one of the books we can heartily commend to 
young readers, not only for its interest, but for 
the information it contains. All lovers of books 
have a natural curiosity to know something about 
their writers, and the better the books, the keener 
the curiosity. Miss Harris has written the various 
chapters of the volume with a full appreciation of 
this fact. She tells us about the earlier group of 
American writers, Irving, Cooper, Prescott, Emer- 
son, and Hawthorne, all of whom are gone, and 
also of some of those who came later, among 
them the Cary sisters, Thoreau, Lowell, Helen 
Hunt, Donald G. Mitchell and others. Miss Har- 
ris has a happy way of imparting information, and 
the boys and girls into whose hands this little 
book may fall will find it pleasant reading. 


Old Concord: Her Highways and Byways. 
111. By Margaret Sidney. Boston : I). Lothrop 
Co. Price $3.00. Of all the books of the year 
there is not one which carries within it such an 
aroma of peculiar delight as this series of sketches 
and descriptions of the highways and byways of 
that most picturesque of towns, Old Concord. 
Concord is like no other place in New England. 
There may be other places as beautiful in their 
way; there are others, perhaps, of more impor- 
tance in the Commonwealth, and we know tlier® 
are hundreds of places where there is more active 
life to the square foot, but with all these admis- 
sions Concord still remains a place of special 
charm, the result and consequence of more causes 
than we care to analyze. Its picturesqueness and 
a certain quaintness of the village has always been 
noticed by visitors, no matter from what part of 
the globe they may have come. Added to this is 
the flavor of lievolutionarv history, and the atmos- 
phere created by the daily lives and presence for 
years of three or four of the giants in American 
literature. Here lived Hawthorne, and Emerson, 
and Thoreau, and the Alcotts, father and daughter, 
and the work that they did here has made it a lit- 
erary Mecca for all time. 

These sketches have all the accuracy of photo- 
graphs, together with that charm of color and life 
which a photograph never possesses. The author 
is a resident of Concord, and a dweller in one of 
its historic mansions, and is thoroughly acquainted 
with every nook and corner of the town as well as 
with every legend which belongs to them. The 
task which she assumes of guiding readers to the 
places made famous by pen and sword, is a labor 
of love, She tells us how the pilgrimage should 
be undertaken, and what should be seen. We 
visit with her the ancient landmarks which belong 
to past generations, and the more modern ones 
which have even more interest to the multitude. 


Ned Harwood’s Visit to Jerusalem. Ill 
Boston: D. Lothrop Co. Trice $1.25. This is \ 
story, instructively told, of a young boy who mad* 
a visit to Jerusalem, and other places in the Holy 
Land, and saw many of the places made interest- 
ing in the Biblical narrative. The author’s per- 
sonal knowledge of the localities visited enables 
her to give vivid and accurate descriptions of 
them. The book is very handsomely bound ir col- 
ored cover from original designs. 

Longfellow Remembrance Book. By Samuel 
Longfellow. Introduction by E. S. Brooks. 111. 
Boston: 1). Lothrop Co. Price $1.25. It needs 
no special memorial to perpetuate the memory of 
Longfellow, and yet this little volume has an in- 
terest and a mission which are sufficient reasons 
for its existence. Its narrative testifies to the 
love and admiration which the whole English- 
speaking people felt for that sweetest of poets 
and most admirable of men, and it touches upon 
those qualities which, apart from his song, en- 
deared him to every one that knew him. “ Old 
and young,” says Mr. Brooks in his brief intro* 
duction, ‘ ‘ rich and poor, found in him inspiration, 
counsel, sympathy and help, and his words touched 
more closely the great, beating human heart than 
did those of even greater and diviner poets.” 
With the exception of the introduction, Whittier’s 
poem called out by the death of Longfellow, — 
* ‘ The Poet and the Children ” — “ An International 
Episode,” and Miss Guiney’s Longfellow in 
Westminster Abbey” — the contents of the book 
are from the pen of the Rev. Samuel Longfellow. 
In loving detail he writes of the childhood and 
boyhood of his brother, his later years, his love 
for children, and of his life at his charming home 
at Cambridge. A closing chapter, from another 
hand, describes the unveiling of the poet’s bust in 
Westminster Abbey, March 1, 1884. The volume 
is beautifully illustrated. 


The Secrets at Roseladies. By Mary Hart- 
well Catherwooil. Boston : I). Lollirop Company. 
Price $1.00. This charming story of the life on 
the Wabash, which originally appeared as a serial 
in Wide Awake, will be read by boys and girls 
with equal pleasure, for the action of the story is 
pretty well divided between the two. The boys 
will be immensely entertained with the adventures 
of the four young treasure-seekers, particularly 
with that which ends in their capture by the crazy 
half-breed Shawnee, who proposes to cut off their 
thumbs to bury in the excavation they have made 
in the burial mound. The girls’ secret, which is 
of a very different character, is just as amusing 
in its way. Mrs. Catherwood has a wonderful 
fund of humor, and a talent for description which 
many a better-known author might envy. The 
character of old Mr. Roseladies is capitally drawn, 
and the account of his journey to the depot 
after Aunt Jane’s trunk is really mirth-provoking. 
Cousin Sarah and “Sister” and little Nonie are 
all charming, and the reader will close the book 
with regret that there is not more of it. 

Brownies and Bogles. By Louise Imogen 
Guiney. 111. Boston : D. Lothrop Co. Price 
$1.00. This little volume might be fitly styled a 
fairy handbook, as in it the author describes every 
kind of the “ little people” that is found in tradi- 
tions or literature in all the countries of the world. 
There are the brownies and waterkelpies of Scot- 
land, the troll and necken of Sweden, the German 
kobalds, the English fairies, pixies and elves, the 
Norwegian and Danish dwarfs and bjergfalls, the 
Irish leprechauns, and a score of others, some of 
whom are mischievous, some malicious, some 
house-helpers, and some who are always waiting 
to do a good turn to those they like. The author 
mingles her descriptions with anecdotes illustra- 
tive of the different qualities and dispositions of 
the various fairy folk described. 


Somk Successful Women. By Sarah K. Bolton. 
With Portraits. Boston : 1). Lothrop Co. Price 
§>1.25. Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton is the author of 
several interesting books, which have given her a 
wide reputation, and this new volume from her 
pen will be warmly welcomed. It consists of 
twelve brief biographies of American women who 
have in various walks and professions earned suc- 
cess so marked as to make their names familiar to 
every household in the country, and who have 
done much to inspire others of their sex to follow 
in their footsteps. Among them are Marion Har- 
land (Mrs. Terliune) ; Mrs. G. R. Alden (Pansy) ; 
Clara Barton, the philanthropist; Alice Freeman, 
the former president of Wellesley College ; Rachel 
Bodley, dean of the Woman’s Medical College, 
Philadelphia; Frances E. Willard, wdiose labors in 
behalf of temperance have given her a place among 
the foremost of American women ; Mrs. Candace 
Wheeler and her daughter Dora, who have done 
so much to develop the love for decorative art in 
this country, and to create opportunities for its 
practical application ; with others who have gained 
equally distinguished places in other departments 
of art, literature and industry. The portraits add 
greatly to the interest of the sketches. 

The Lost Earl. By J. T. Trowbridge. 111. 
Boston : I). Lothrcp Co. Price $2.00. This vol- 
ume will be warmly welcomed by the admirers of 
Mr. Trowbridge — and they are legion. Although 
Mr. Trowbridge is better known as a successful 
novelist and writer of juvenile stories, he is one of 
the truest of our American poets, and it is to be 
regretted that he has not of tener turned his atten- 
tion to verse. His themes, though not ambitious, 
are always high, and his poems are marked by 
feeling, naturalness and exquisite finish. The 
Lost Earl has never before been printed in book 
form. It is the story of the revolt of a strong 
soul against conventional society life, and the 
casting aside of rank for social freedom. 

6 86 

































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